[EAS] Blue Alerts Are Back

[Ed Czarnecki]

>>Crimes like this against police officers are (as far as I know) quite a
bit less common than AMBER alerts. It seems strange to me that a special 
>>protocol is needed at all in a case like this. The criminal needs to be
stopped ASAP regardless of who they murdered. 

Just some statistical context, since the number of Amber Alerts were
mentioned.  In 2015, there were 182 Amber alerts nationwide, with the
abductors identified in 157 on those alerts (source: NCMEC).  That same
year, 58 law enforcement officers were killed (by assault, gunfire, bomb or
vehicular assault).  (sources: ODMP, NLEOMF).

Not sure how many of these cases would have resulted in a Code Blue alert
scenario, but some subset of those 58 incidents could have involved Code
Blue criteria (info on the suspect, on the loose, danger to the public,
etc.).  Not all, but some fraction of 58 nationwide.

2016 marked a sharp uptick to 77 police officer deaths (by assault, gunfire,
stabbing or vehicular assault), including 21 deaths in ambush-style
shootings.

2017 continues the trend unfortunately, with 21 officer deaths in the first
5 months of the year.