Yesterday evening I received a forwarded message telling of an Amber Alert that had been issued for a 3 year old child that had been abducted from Monroe. This message even told the color of the vehicle and gave a license plate number.
With an abduction incident just happening in the city of Monroe recently I immediately forwarded the message to people on my cell phone contacts list and then I decided to make a phone call to my sister and ask her to turn on her television to see what was going on. My sister watched and said there was nothing going across her screen (there usually is when an Amber Alert is issued).
Of course I initially thought this is a great idea in a case of an Amber Alert. People are always on their cell phones so why not send a message and get it to as many people as possible. Then after hearing that this was nothing but a hoax that was sent to people in many different states I couldn't believe it. I have to ask, how could someone do such a thing? It is like 'crying wolf'. Now will it be believed by people if this was to happen for the real thing? Hopefully some 'moron' didn't just ruin this for someone who really needs this information passed along.
Well, even though I fell for the 'hoax' and forwarded it to my friends and family, I can say that I would forward one again if I ever received a text message like that again. I guess I would rather take the chance of it being fake and still getting the word out, than to just ignore it and find out it was a true Amber Alert.
