There are things that make me angry in the media every day—things that make my blood boil. They say news hits the hardest when it’s close to home. So, when I woke up on the morning of Feb. 15, I was filled with rage at what I read online.
“Ontarians flooded 911 with complaints that Amber Alerts woke them up, police say,” one headline read. The previous night, an Amber Alert had gone out at 11:36 p.m. as police investigated the disappearance of 11-year-old Riya Rajkumar.
The alert was loud and startling—it was doing its job.
However, when some people were woken up from their sleep by this terrible news, their first instinct was not to feel sympathy or sadness. It was to complain.
It was to pick up the phone, call 911, and complain about having their dreams interrupted by an Amber Alert.
Tragically, the girl was found dead and her father—now also dead—was arrested. The public was notified less than an hour later via another emergency alert on their cellphones.
The next morning, in addition to announcing the devastating details, the police had to inform the public about how upset they were about the number of calls and emails they had received from people complaining about the late-night Amber Alert. Oh, and they also used the word “disappointed.”
”
Imagine being Riya’s mother and waking up and seeing these articles everywhere—finding out that people think your child’s death is an inconvenience
.” – Hannah Berge, fourth-year journalism
Luckily, police were able to find the father because of the Amber Alert. A man driving on the highway saw the alert come up on his phone, noticed the licence plate driving close by, and called the cops, who then successfully located and arrested the father.
Besides the major complaint from people about their sleep being worth more than a child’s life, many people were upset about the alerts because they were located far away, in Sudbury, for example. What could they possibly do? The crime was so far away.
Did people consider for a second that the suspect was in a car before calling 911? It’s not entirely out of the question that he could have arrived in Sudbury the next day. There is always a slight chance.
But, today, an individual’s peaceful sleep is apparently worth more than that slight chance of finding a missing child.
This certainly makes you question what state our society is in, and what kind of people we have become. We are all so wrapped up in our own personal problems that we can no longer empathize with one another.
Imagine being Riya’s mother and waking up and seeing these articles everywhere—finding out that people think your child’s death is an inconvenience.
Imagine reading about how members of your community thought interrupting their sleep wasn’t worth a chance at saving your child’s life.
We are Canadians. We pride ourselves on being kind, on being a part of our community, on being welcoming. But, perhaps that is no longer true.
If we want this world to be a better place like we all say we do, then maybe it’s time to step out of our personal bubbles, and step into other people’s lives—because none of us would value five minutes of a stranger’s sleep over our own child’s life.
