[EAS] Blue Alert reply comments due Tuesday, August 29

[Sean Donelan]

On Thu, 31 Aug 2017, Phil Johnson wrote:
> I won't argue with Ed's assertion about the politics of "voluntary," but I
> will state (again) that BLU Alerts are of no benefit to anyone but the
> politicians who want to be seen as "doing something" about attacks on police
> officers.  I have yet to see the citation of a single case in which a BLU
> alert would have prevented the death of or injury to a cop.

Fire alarms don't prevent fires. Fire alarms warn people they may be in 
danger due to a fire.

Tornado warnings don't prevent tornados.  Tornado warnings warn people 
they may be in danger due to a tornado.

Reviewing the 19 or so Blue Alerts issued since 2008, I think most 
reasonable people would agree in at least three cases some public alert 
due to an imminent threat to public safety. Whether that requires a new 
special code for a specific victim group, or should be covered by 
existing imminent threat codes for public safety. Where the line should 
be drawn for the remaining 15 Blue Alerts could be a difficult, but 
needed debate.

More worrying is the idea that police don't warn the public about 
imminent threats to public safety unless there is a special law and 
warning code directing them to warn the public. Its a bit nonsensical, 
and doesn't reflect any police officer I know. Police officers put 
themselves into danger to protect the public.

I don't understand the COPS Office assertion that a new EAS code is 
needed because law enforcement misused the existing EAS codes.  Wouldn't 
the better solution to fix the problem of a very small number of law 
enforcement agencies misusing the existing EAS codes?