FBI in Las Vegas creates team to respond to child abductions

A new quick-response team created to handle potential child abductions in Nevada was unveiled Monday by the FBI in Las Vegas.

The Joint Child Abduction Rapid Deployment unit, dubbed JCARD, brings together a group of locally trained investigators to respond and assist any agency investigating a child abduction. It is modeled after the FBI CARD team, which is made up of members across the United States who provide agencies with the skills and techniques needed to successfully investigate abductions.

At a Monday news conference, Special Agent in Charge Aaron Rouse said the FBI’s Las Vegas division had been working to develop the multi-agency team since 2015.

The team today consists of 40 members from the following organizations: the Metropolitan Police Department, North Las Vegas and Henderson police, the Nevada Highway Patrol, the Esmeralda County Sheriff’s Office, the Mesquite Police Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Nevada attorney general’s office, the National Park Service, Red Rock Search and Rescue, and the FBI.

JCARD’s three-day training program focuses on the investigative phases of a child abduction and is expected to improve response time to such crimes and increase the chances of finding a child safely. The team will be deployed when a child is abducted by a stranger.

“Child abductions are a low-probability but high-impact crime,” Rouse said.

Because most local law enforcement agencies investigate just one or two child abduction cases a year, Rouse explained, they do not always have the level of experience needed to handle abductions effectively.

“We have to be on our A-game for those one or two that may occur,” he said. “The training is critical for all levels of law enforcement, all the way down to the patrol level.”

The team is expected to expand in the coming months as more agencies in Northern Nevada complete their training. Rouse said the FBI’s goal is to conduct statewide training exercises so that agencies across Nevada can get to know each other.

“No single agency can work on one of these cases alone. That’s why JCARD is so important,” Rouse said. “It will marshal all of our resources, all of our knowledge, all of our experience together for one goal, one team, one mission: the safe return of an abducted child.”

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.