Keeping Kids Safe While Shopping, and in General
Lower Hudson retailers ready to help find lost children By BRIAN J. HOWARD THE JOURNAL NEWS Before leaving home • Talk to your children about safety. Keep it positive, but be sure they know the basics. • As soon as they are old enough, make sure they know your full name and theirs, your home address and your home and cell-phone numbers. • Pick a meeting place beforehand where everyone will know to go in case you get separated. • Be aware what your children are wearing, and carry a recent photo. • If possible, leave children home for big shopping trips, or shop online. Staying together • Teach children to stay by your side or within view at all times. • Leave personalized clothing or knapsacks at home. • Never leave them alone; store employees aren't baby sitters. • Use the buddy system among family members or by bringing children's friends along. • Cell phones are handy for staying in touch, but reception can vary, and their use may distract children from their surroundings. If you get separated • Tell a security guard or store employee immediately. This goes for parents and children alike. • Children should stay put; they should not go looking for you or leave with anyone. • If someone tries to take them somewhere, they should try to get away quickly and yell, "Someone is trying to take me!" • If the store isn't a Code Adam participant, insist that all entrances be covered and a storewide search initiated with a public address announcement of the child's name and description. • Call police if the child is not found within 10 minutes. Sources: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the state Division of Criminal Justice Services For more information Call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 800-843-5678, or visit www.missingkids.com. (Original publication: December 17, 2005) In the midst of last year's Christmas shopping frenzy, Teresa Lockwood learned just how quickly a 7-year-old can disappear. "I thought to myself, 'It's been one minute. Where could she be?'" the Somers mother of two said of the day her daughter Tara went missing at the Jefferson Valley Mall in Yorktown. Lockwood had just sat Tara at a table in the food court and gone with her son Joseph to get them lunch at Burger King. While she waited to pay, she sent Joseph, who was 10 at the time, back to the table with the food. He came back seconds later and told her Tara was gone. "At that point, that's when you get the ball in your throat," Lockwood said. There was no sign of Tara anywhere. Other moms nearby hadn't seen her, either. Fearing the worst, Lockwood spotted a security guard, who took Tara's description and relayed it by walkie-talkie to guards on both levels of the 580,000-square-foot mall. A search began, and all exits were covered to keep her from leaving. Before long, a guard spotted Tara riding the escalator to the first floor, where she had spotted Santa Claus, who was on a break from the mall's holiday display. She didn't even know that she was "lost." "You try not to take your eyes off them," Lockwood said. "It all happened within a minute." Losing a child in a crowded store or mall is among any parent's — or grandparent's, nanny's or baby sitter's — worst fears. The crush of holiday shoppers only makes it that much more difficult. These days, though, parents often have an ally when those frantic moments strike. The response Lockwood witnessed from mall security was a textbook demonstration of the procedures developed by Wal-Mart 11 years ago and embodied in the Code Adam protocol adopted by at least 50 major retailers. Named for Adam Walsh, the 6-year-old son of Revé and John Walsh who disappeared from a Florida department store in 1981 and was found dead two weeks later, Code Adam has been used by Wal-Marts nationwide since 1996. Through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., which John Walsh co-founded, 40,000 stores and 10,000 government buildings use the program. Participating retailers can be identified by blue-and-white stickers posted at their entrances. They include such Lower Hudson Valley retailers as Nordstrom, Toys "R" Us and Kmart. Others, like Target, have similar procedures. Jefferson Valley Mall Manager Peter Lembo said Lockwood did the right thing by approaching a guard as soon as she realized Tara was missing. "The sooner we can broadcast what we're looking for, the faster we can usually locate them," Lembo said. The odds of a lost child being abducted by a stranger are quite low. So-called stereotypical kidnappings like the one that led to Adam Walsh's death accounted for only 1 percent of missing-child reports in New York state last year, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. In nine cases out of 10, abductions were committed by family members, usually noncustodial parents. Still, parents and store managers alike are mistaken if they don't take immediate action to find a missing child, NCMEC spokesman David Shapiro said. Shapiro recalled losing sight of his own young daughter in a department store once, describing the experience as "stark terror." "A lot of these incidents are innocent, true, but it can turn into a tragedy," he said. "You need to react quickly and do a thorough search of the facility." According to the center's Web site, about 100 child abduction cases each year end in homicide. In nearly three-fourths of those cases, the child is killed within three hours of being taken. If a store doesn't use the Code Adam protocol, parents should insist all exits be guarded, the child's name and description broadcast over the public address system and the police notified. Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro said parents can't afford to worry about crying wolf. "They will absolutely be taken seriously," Pirro said. "I've been in this business 30 years, and I have never met a police officer who wasn't thrilled when it was a false alarm, who wasn't thrilled when a child was found." "Things can happen in an instant, and a child can be taken out of there in a matter of seconds," said Yorktown Youth Officer Richard Finn, who first learned about Code Adam after it was implemented while his wife was shopping at Marshall's. Pirro advised parents to talk to their children about the danger from predators who might lure them away. It should be done in a way that won't frighten the child. But, she said, it is more dangerous not to teach them properly. At least one retail manager locally feels that parents themselves could stand to be better educated. Peter Black, operations manager at Borders in Mount Kisco, said that sometimes it is the parents themselves who wander off, often relying on store employees as baby sitters. "We have found children and can't find the parents," Black said. "One time, we found the parents having lunch across the street." In that case, the police were notified, he said. The Code Adam protocol has proved effective at Borders. It never takes more than two minutes to find a missing child in the store, Black said. At Target in Mount Kisco, Peggy Patalino of Bedford was glad to learn that stores had such plans in place. Her 18-month-old, Jack, was strapped into a stroller, but she also has a 7-year-old and a 5-year-old and once experienced the fright of losing one of them at a supermarket. "When you lose your kid, your mind goes nuts," Patalino said. "You think that some big bad person is going to try and take them." http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051217/NEWS02/512170325/1020/NEWS04