A text message alert helped police in Federal Way, Washington find and arrest a kidnapping suspect who is being investigated for luring and raping an 8-year-old girl.
Text alerts and smartphone applications, like Text No More, which was designed to save lives on the road, are helping police spread the word when children disappear and are in danger.
A local company created a one of a kind app designed to prevent texting while driving, but discovered they could also help find missing kids. Here’s how it works: the user downloads the free application to their smartphone, and prior to driving, the user activates the Text No More app, selecting an estimated time they will be driving. Once the Text No More app is enabled, an image of a missing child is displayed, followed by a reward from a Text No More partner, made up of local retailers. The reward is a coupon or freebie for stores near you, the reward will stay in your smartphone until you redeem it. While the Text No More app is enabled. It shuts down all notifications and holds incoming texts from coming through. It also prevents the driver from sending a text message. If the driver has Bluetooth, calls will still come through. Rodney Stearns created Text No More app after seeing the worst of what can happen when drivers text while driving when he was a paramedic in Los Angeles for nine years. Stearns said he started the application to entice drivers to put the smartphone down when they are driving, but the app is doing more than preventing distracted driving, it’s also helping find missing children.
“Originally, Text No More was supposed to be an anti-texting and driving app but with the downloads going in 14 countries, we decided that with millions if eyes, why not put missing kids there.”
Apps like Text No More are helping police in cases of missing children. On Monday, an 8-year-old girl in Federal Way, Washington disappeared from the playground prompting her mother to call police, who in turn issued an Amber Alert. An alert store clerk at a Target store in Federal Way noticed 28-year-old Benjamin Trinh shopping for clothes with the missing 8-year-old girl, acting strangely, and recognized the girl from an Amber Alert text that was sent to her smartphone earlier that day. Police arrested Trinh within 24 hours thanks to the clerk’s help.
Stearns said, “It’s free. Download it. You are going to put a Mom at ease, put a family at ease, knowing there is an extra set of eyes.” There are currently 15 children on the Text No More missing children app. One of the first children to appear on the app was Kyron Horman, the Northwest Portland boy who disappeared from Skyline School on June 4, 2010. Horman’s picture is still in the Text No More cue.
The app is gaining popularity, but Stearns hopes more smartphone users will download the app, “So it’s easier to get the message out there, and harder to hide a kid.”
More than 10,000 people in Portland have downloaded the free app so far this year. Text No More is the only app that rewards users for not texting while driving. The company makes money by charging the local businesses a flat monthly fee to offer a reward to the user.
The Blackberry app will be launched on Monday, April 18th.
