Nick Lampson: “as a father, one of my biggest fears over the years has been discovering perhaps that one of my daughters would be…”

“as a father, one of my biggest fears over the years has been discovering perhaps that one of my daughters would be missing. Sadly, last November, one of my constituents was living mine and every parent's nightmare when she frantically called the Texas City Texas Police Department after her ten year old daughter did not arrive home from school. Recently, my district has been stricken with a stream of missing children. This issue has become my highest priority as well as that of the police departments in my area to try to put an end to this. The chief of police for Texas City, Texas, Jerry Purdon, last year visited the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and underwent training on developing a program for responding to a missing child alert. One of the key elements in the department's new program was the actual response time, which they felt had been a key factor in previous failures. In this Texas City case, the department was able to flood the area with both police and informed neighbors to search for any sign of the missing child. Hours went by until a man appeared in the middle of the neighborhood with the missing girl, stating that he had found her under some stairs. She was immediately rushed to the hospital while the man was questioned by the police. Suspicious from the start, they were able to obtain a full confession.…”