South Dakota CART Team On Alert for Missing or Abducted Children

SIOUX FALLS – If a child is abducted or missing in South Dakota members of the Child Abduction Response Team are instantly called to action. They drop what they’re doing and go to the scene even if it’s across that state.

More than two dozen law enforcement and emergency management professionals make up the team that is mobilized when a child goes missing under suspicious circumstances.

They meet quarterly to discuss training methods and hold mock exercises like one this week in Kadoka, South Dakota.

“We have to make sure we test the things we do,” said Sara Rabern, a member of CART and Public Information Officer for the SD Attorney General Office.

“We assist local agencies, smaller agencies that don’t always have the resources to conduct these investigations alone,” said Rabern.

During this week’s mock training exercise, the CART members focus on processing volunteers for searches in missing children cases.  In the case of a missing child, volunteers will arrive to help and this exercise will be used to organize those spontaneous volunteers including verifying their identities and best opportunity to utilize their unique abilities.

The law enforcement professionals who are members of CART are nationally trained.

South Dakota CART partners include the following: Attorney General’s Office, Division of Criminal Investigation, FBI, Department of Public Safety, Hughes and Stanley County Emergency Management, Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office, Rapid City Police Department, Pennington County Sheriff’s Office, Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office and Sioux Falls Police Department.

The South Dakota CART team is one of 18 in the United States and is nationally certified.

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