This incident occurred in Hall County, located about 80 miles South East from Amarillo, Texas, some 300 miles from Frisco. The suspect, 33-year-old Seth Altman, is still at large, as of October 10.
Many people, however, did not care. Some couldn’t go back to sleep after the alarm went off, while others were confused about what the alert meant and had never heard of a Blue Alert. Some people slept through it entirely.
“Initially I didn’t know what it was,” said Pranavi Pushpala, a freshman at Wakeland.“So I searched it up because I was curious.” Most people, if they did care or were curious about what a Blue Alert was, had to google it.
Others did not really think to look it up because the Blue Alert does not affect the Denton and Collin County area.“I don’t know what a Blue Alert is,” said Adriana Brady, a Spanish one and two teacher. “When the alarm came on I didn’t really look at it because there wasn’t anything I was going to be able to do about it. I know what a Silver Alert is and what an AMBER Alert is, but I think the Blue Alert has something to do with the police.”
Some people knew the basics of what a Blue Alert is, while others had no knowledge or had to search for the definition.“I didn’t hear the alarm at 4:40 a.m. because my phone was on, Do Not Disturb,” said Tracy Jackson, one of the Wakeland counselors. “But I did hear at 6:00 a.m. when my Do Not Disturb turned off. Ironically, I did know what a Blue Alert was because about two or three days before, we got an AMBER alert, and me and Mrs. Chambers [one of the other counselors] were talking about the different alerts and so we looked them up. I did end up getting the alarm multiple times throughout the day.”
Some received multiple alerts throughout the day, approximately every 45 minutes. The repeated alarms annoyed many, prompting questions about the necessity of the alert system.