Friday July 21, 2023 | LANGFORD, BC [Updated July 23, 2023]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
In recent days, Canadians have been seeing and hearing Amber Alerts on television and on their mobile phones.
Those alerts have been issued since Wednesday July 19 as a result of police seeking the whereabouts of a woman and her two children (as well now apparently in the company of her father and boyfriend).
See updates on the Emergency Info BC webpage and a timeline by the BC RCMP on their web page.
Background:
This is about the case out of Kamloops. Police say the mother of the missing children — Verity Bolton — failed to return the children to their father after a vacation in Kelowna.
- Surrey RCMP’s serious crimes unit has taken over the case.
- As of July 20, investigators say the most recent sightings of the children Aurora and Joshuah were at a Merritt gas station on July 7 and that the mother was seen at a Kamloops grocery store on July 15.
- During the Merritt sighting, reportedly RCMP Cpl. Vanessa Munn said the mother and children appeared to be travelling with her father Robert Bolton, 74, and her boyfriend Abraxas Glazov, 53.
- The sighted blue 2012 Dodge Ram 2500 crew cab pickup was reportedly also towing a large travel trailer on July 7, though a much smaller horse trailer was behind the truck during the July 15 sighting.
Parents and children:
This point of this quick article is to shed a bit of insight onto cases that involve one or both parents of children who have reportedly been abducted.
Sometimes people may feel that if the children are with one of their parents that there’s less of a concern than if involving a stranger. They might wonder if there is overreach into a family situation.
We asked West Shore RCMP for any comment or thoughts on the use of Amber Alerts where parents of the children are involved.
“Amber Alerts are only issued when a child has been abducted and is believed to be in grave danger,” says Cpl Nancy Saggar, Media Relations Officer, West Shore RCMP.
“Regardless of who the child is with (or abducted by), even if it’s a parent, if the child’s believed to be in danger then an Amber Alert can be used,” said Saggar in a statement by email to Island Social Trends.