Give your head a shake

First, the good news: A 3-year-old boy was found safe in Toronto early Tuesday morning after Ontario Provincial Police issued an Amber Alert.

Now, the bad news: There are still people out there who clearly don’t appreciate the importance of point one, above.

They don’t understand that, when a child goes missing, the community has a duty to rally round and do everything possible to find them — even if that means putting up with a bit of inconvenience.

They’re the ones who keep calling 911 to complain about the loud noise the emergency alert system triggers on mobile phones and TVs. For them, apparently, their peace and quiet trumps being disturbed because a child might be in peril.

To them we say: Give your heads a shake. You may not be able to grow a conscience overnight, but at the very least refrain from clogging emergency call lines with your petty complaints.

This happened in mid-February when several Amber Alerts were issued overnight about the search for an 11-year-old Mississauga girl named Riya Rajkumar. Tragically, she was found dead, killed by her father.

After that incident, Peel Region police compiled a report on misuse of the 911 system. Dozens of people called the emergency number that night to complain the Amber Alert interrupted their TV viewing, woke them up or invaded their privacy. It happened again on Tuesday, when an alert went out about the missing boy.

That isn’t just callous. It’s an abuse of the 911 number. The bottom line isn’t complicated: A missing child qualifies as an emergency. Getting an alert about that doesn’t. So don’t call.