Blue Alerts frustrate cellphone owners
Cellphone users across Tennessee received multiple “Blue Alerts” on Tuesday and Wednesday, including some that came overnight and early in the morning.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation triggered two Blue Alerts this week tied to separate shootings that left two police officers hurt in Middle Tennessee — one in Erin and one in Madison. Both suspects have since been apprehended.
Once TBI triggers a Blue Alert, cellphone providers can push them through to users as an emergency notification.
“While TBI doesn’t send mobile alerts to your device, we’re working with our partners who do to determine what happened,” TBI said in a tweet Wednesday morning. “Not everyone received them.”
Social media users chimed in on their frustration over the barrage of Blue Alerts pushed to their phones, with some saying they turned them off altogether. Some said they got the initial Blue Alerts about both manhunts hours after TBI first tweeted that the alerts were issued.
“Like you, we want our alert system to be as helpful as it can be, and always work to sharpen what we do based on your feedback,” TBI said. “We hear many of your frustrations about what happened and will certainly take it into account moving forward.”
The delivery of cellphone alerts can vary among cellphone carriers and individual phone settings, along with other factors like limited coverage and outages.
It’s not the first time Tennessee residents have experienced issues with cellphone alerts in recent years.
Some expressed similar frustration over cellphone alerts when tornadoes swept through the region in March 2020. While TBI is not in charge of weather alerts, residents reported similar issues with delayed or missing warnings. Some said they were only alerted minutes before a tornado struck, while others said they had less than a minute or no warning at all. Twenty-five people died and hundreds were injured.
BLUE ALERTS
TBI has used Blue Alerts since July 1, 2011.
Similar to Amber Alerts, they are used “for the rapid dissemination of information to the public to assist in apprehending violent criminals who
kill or seriously injure a law enforcement officer in the line of duty or to aid in locating a missing officer where foul play is involved,” according to TBI.
Blue Alerts are issued by the staff in TBI’s Criminal Intelligence Unit, but the way cellphone providers and users receive them vary depending on settings.
“In Blue Alerts, cellphone notifications are just one tool used to alert the public about dangerous fugitives who pose an immediate risk to the community,” TBI said Wednesday.
TBI also uses social media platforms to share information, along with its website and partnering with other state organizations.