As I was driving this afternoon, I saw the notices on the highways that the police are looking for a red GMC Yukon with Minnesota license plate FXN 038. The kid is a five-year-old Asian boy from Brooklyn Center, abducted by his father.

The child is described as Asian, about three-feet-tall and 35 pounds.

The father is 39-year-old Xou Moua. He is described as Asian, five-foot-four and 135 pounds. He has brown eyes and birthmark on his left biceps.

He was last seen wearing a Superman T-shirt with an ‘S’ on the front. He was wearing jean shorts and black sandals.

Call 911 if you see or know anything.

The state of Minnesota’s Amber Alert page is pathetic. It looks like it hasn’t been updated in years. Isn’t the point of this whole thing to be timely with information? The first thing I thought to do when I got home after seeing those alerts on the highway was to check the internet. I assumed state law enforcement would be the place to look because of the coordinated search effort required.

Wrong.

I then went to KSTP.com to see if there was a story up, which there was. But, frankly, I wanted to hear that news from a more reliable source than… the news. I did find something at Code Amber. They have a running list of all the Amber Alerts in the USA and Canada. They even have a ticker widget you can put on your own website, or you can sign up for email alerts when an Amber Alert is issued.

I’m disappointed. If I can sign up with the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to get email or SMS updates on things like Snow Emergencies or Wireless Minneapolis, why can’t I get something like an Amber Alert message from the state?

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