Albuquerque police hold training to hone Amber Alert response

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Albuquerque police officers spent Wednesday afternoon at their Reality Based Training Center going through a few different mock Amber Alert calls.

The exercise included detectives and field officers, but they also had role players to make the scenarios as real as possible.

“This scenario is based on the abduction of a child and how officers need to respond to it,” said Deputy Commander Jay Ratliff with APD’s Special Victims Unit. “One of the more chaotic scenes we can respond to as an agency.”

Ratliff says this is something the department is trying to do regularly now to keep all of the different bureaus and divisions in sync on how to respond to those types of chaotic cases.

For example, in one scenario Wednesday a 16-year-old girl was abducted after a bad breakup that got violent. Just like a real call, officers met with detectives, conducted a search warrant, and worked until the victim was out of harm’s way.

“What you will see today is how officers respond to that call initially and then how that process begins to initiate an Amber Alert,” Ratliff said. “It will conclude with the apprehension of the suspect and recovery of the child victim.

This is the first time APD has done this type of mock Amber Alert training. Ratliff says, fortunately, they don’t have many of these cases on a regular basis.