Interagency Child Abduction Response Team Forming In Snohomish County

March 28, 2018

Police Blotter

ICART

Tomorrow marks the first official day for ICART in Snohomish County

Like the regional SWAT team that responds to high risk situations or the S.M.A.R.T. team that investigates officer-involved use of force incidents there’s a new multi-agency team forming in Everett and Snohomish County. This team will focus on child abductions.

Tomorrow will mark the official recognition and formation of the Interagency Child Abduction Response Team. The team is made up of a variety of specialists including law enforcement managers and investigators, emergency managers, child advocates, dispatchers, public information specialists, corrections department personnel, fugitive and sex offender trackers, healthcare facilities and others from 18 different agencies in Snohomish County.

The goal of the Snohomish County Interagency Child Abduction Response Team (to be known as ICART) is to quickly and effectively locate and recover a child unharmed who has been abducted or who is missing under suspicious circumstances, by utilizing a team of pre-identified resources and personnel with prior training and/or experience related to child abductions.

The initial push for the ICART team began in May of last year as interlocal agreements were set with many jurisdictions throughout Snohomish County.

ICART

About a hundred officers are undergoing Child Abduction Response Training in Everett this week. Photo credit Everett Police

This week nearly a hundred police officers are on the Campus of WSU Everett participating in a week-long training on best practices in dealing with child abductions. They are looking at case studies, working on how to determine resources and finding ways to best set up Child Abuse Response Teams in their own areas. There are people here from as far away as Wyoming, Utah, Iowa and California as well as the largest contingent from Snohomish County.

There are very specific criteria for when the ICART team would be involved in a child abduction case. The case would have to involve non-family abduction of a child. The team would not be involved in a custody dispute type of case. Also there must be reason to believe the child is in danger due to violence or health considerations.

In order for the local ICART team to be activated there has to be a formal request from a participating police agency to have the team brought in. That is similar to the protocol for the SWAT and S.M.A.R.T. teams that serve Everett and the surrounding area.



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