Criteria For Silver Alerts

LOWNDES and NOXUBEE Counties, Miss. (WCBI) – The Silver Alert for Chris Reed is the second one issued in Columbus, in the last 5 days.

Right now, people are preparing a search party for Reed.

Silver Alerts can be issued for anybody and are usually issued when someone should be somewhere and they aren’t there.

That’s exactly the situation surrounding 25-year old Christopher Reed.

It’s been over 24-hours and concerns continue to grow, which can be seen here at the Riverwalk, as residents are gathering to help search for Chris.

“A Silver Alert, it goes nationwide. It goes more than just where the news outlets will reach. It gets all over the whole region, just like an amber alert would,” says Columbus Police Department Criminal Investigator, Andy Hood.

A lot of work goes into issuing a Silver Alert.

“We gathered all of the information there and sent it in to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations and they issued it out to the news media and to their resources.”

Once law enforcement get to a certain point in their investigation and have had no luck, that’s when the process starts.

“You just use it when you just about utilized your resources in a small community to find people, so you want to put it out there on social media, or contact the news media to try to get as much help as you can,” Macon Police Assistant Chief Davine Beck.

Investigators say many people believe Silver Alerts are only issued for the elderly, but that’s not the case.

They can be issued for anybody who is missing and can’t be found, or is supposed to be at a certain location, but isn’t there.

“They just begin to be concerned, saying no, it’s just unusual. It’s just very unusual that he or she is missing, and has been gone this long, and so it kind of rises suspicions and alert for us to try and find this person.”

The goal of a Silver Alert is to track the person down as fast as possible, especially when the person’s health or safety is involved.

“People that has medical conditions, small kids, mentally ill, you want to try to track these people down as fast as possible, especially, medical needs. You could have a person that’s diabetic, needs insulin right then and there.”

A Silver Alert is cancelled once the missing person is found.