Law enforcement, volunteers conduct child abduction response exercise

Jun. 7—Multiple law enforcement agencies and dozens of civilian volunteers were busy in Hunt County on Friday morning conducting a search for a missing and possibly abducted individual.

Fortunately, it was only a test.

The Hunt County Fairgrounds served as the staging area for an exercise to train for the possibility of a child abduction. The training was conducted by the Northeast Texas Child Abduction Response Team (CART). The Hunt County Sheriff's Office hosted the event.

Members of the EastTex Regional Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and Mark9 Search and Rescue met at the fairgrounds and were notified that the exercise would be focused a short distance away, at Oak Creek Park in Greenville.

Once at the park, the teams were joined by representatives with the Texas Rangers, FBI, Fox Valley Technical College, Team Adam, Rockwall County Sheriff's Office, Rockwall Police Department, Farmersville Police Department, Fate Police Department, Royse City Police Department, Wylie Police Department, Texas Highway Patrol Department, Texas Department of Family Protective Services and the Hunt County Child Advocacy Center.

The purpose of the exercise was to test the response of local law enforcement, CART and CERT-vetted volunteers to a missing child incident, including the investigative process, command and control systems, family advocacy and victim assistance, and search rescue/recovery team operations.

During the exercise, evaluators from the Fox Valley Technical College and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children were to assess the team's response capabilities for National CART program certification.

The training was expected to be concluded by Friday afternoon.

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