INDIANAPOLIS — The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is set to become the first agency in Indiana to create a team that will focus on the critical minutes and hours to reconnect a child with their family.
IMPD's new effort to find missing and abducted children is apart of the program 'Child Abduction Response Team.'
The program consists of a regional team of experts that responds when a child is abducted. CART allows additional detectives the workforce and equipment to be brought to the front lines of an investigation, by enlisting the help of the FEMA Task Force search dogs, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Air Support. The team will bring together 25 agencies when a child is reported missing.
IMPD Sgt. Paul Scott received the Medal of Merit award on Wednesday for the work he has done to create a CART team in Indiana.
Sergeant Scott says creating a CART team allows them to pool resources and respond to assist with the first hours of an investigation — which are critical when a child goes missing.
"Our department is mandated within an hours response, so if that agency gets a notification and we can get there within an hour, we can gather so much information in that two to three hour period that it can really be a successful outcome," Sergeant Scott said.
Training for IMPD is scheduled for January, where they will also have to do a field exercise.
After that, IMPD will be one of just over 20 agencies in the country to be CART certified.
