AMB-2026-0514-01 · 4 drones online · 31 volunteers in polygon
Amber's Angels
Closing the coverage gap
in Carroll County.
A volunteer civilian search network that activates only when FEMA issues an alert — and routes every detection through a coordinator before anything reaches a responding officer.
Briefing for the Carrollton Police Department
·
June 2, 2026
Grant Lindberg, Executive Director · info@amberangels.org · amberangels.org
The Stakes
76%
of abducted children who are murdered are killed within the first three hours of the abduction.
The Golden Hour
The window is
The window is
already closing.
Law enforcement has powerful tools — but physical reach is bounded by personnel on shift and the fixed positions of stationary plate readers. In the first hour after an AMBER Alert fires, suspect vehicles can leave covered corridors entirely.
We are building the network that watches the corridors you can't reach in time.
Source — OJJDP / National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
What this platform is —
and what it deliberately is not.
Before anything else, we want to set the boundary. Amber's Angels is a volunteer civilian search network that responds to government-issued alerts only. The framing matters for liability, for public messaging, and for how detections route to CPD.
✓
What we are
-
✓A volunteer search network
Vetted civilians, drone pilots with FAA Part 107, and human coordinators we vet and supervise.
-
✓Triggered by FEMA IPAWS
The platform only activates when a government-issued alert is in force. No volunteer can create an alert, escalate one, or contact law enforcement directly.
-
✓Coordinator-mediated
Every detection passes through a human coordinator before it reaches a responding team. AI flags; humans decide.
-
✓Observe and report only
The volunteer agreement is binding and signed before first use. We cover this in detail on slide 06.
×
What we are not
-
×Not law enforcement
We do not have arrest authority, we do not deploy on our own initiative, and we do not represent CPD or any agency.
-
×Not a crime-reporting tool
Users cannot file reports through the app. There is no path from a volunteer's phone to an officer that bypasses the coordinator review gate.
-
×Not a pursuit or contact platform
Volunteers do not approach vehicles, knock on doors, or detain anyone. Doing so is a violation of the volunteer agreement and removes them from the platform.
-
×Not a surveillance database
There is no archive of plate reads, no video retained beyond inference, and no record of vehicles that were not flagged inside an active alert.
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
The Coverage Gap
Static coverage,
Static coverage,
moving target.
Every fixed-camera deployment defines a perimeter — and a suspect leaving an alert zone doesn't stay inside it. Inside the first hour, every minute widens the gap between where cameras can see and where the vehicle actually is. The platform exists to put mobile eyes on the corridors no fixed installation can pivot to.
3 hr
before the critical
recovery window closes
recovery window closes
Mobile
coverage that travels
with the alert polygon
with the alert polygon
Net-new
at no infrastructure cost
to the department
to the department
"Having this and identifying the person right away was very, very helpful — and hopefully it saved somebody's life or even saved his own life."
— Lt. Blake Hitchcock, Carrollton PD · Fox 5 Atlanta, 2019
COVERAGE GAP · ILLUSTRATIVE
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
Alert fires. Network activates.
Coordinator confirms.
01 — TRIGGER
FEMA IPAWS
Government-issued alert is the only thing that turns the network on. CAP XML drives the polygon and vehicle profile.
02 — DISPATCH
Mission Push
Enrolled volunteers inside the search polygon receive a sector assignment. They opt in per-mission.
03 — INFERENCE
Cascade Detection
YOLOv8 + OpenALPR run server-side on every frame. Plate + make + model + color must all match.
04 — REVIEW
Human Coordinator
Every flagged detection lands in a coordinator review queue. Confirm, request second look, or reject.
05 — HANDOFF
Lead to CPD
Coordinator-verified GPS, time, photo, and vehicle profile delivered to the response team CPD designates.
No AI-only alerts ever reach CPD. The cascade flags candidates; a trained human coordinator decides what's a lead. We reduce false positives from ~30% (plate-only systems) to under 5% by requiring vehicle make/model/color corroboration before a coordinator even sees the result.
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
Volunteers are accountable.
So are coordinators.
Two mechanisms underpin CPD's protection: a binding volunteer agreement signed before any mission contact, and a tamper-evident audit log of every coordinator action.
Volunteer ToS Gate
Signed before any access to a live mission. Revocable for cause.
v 4.2 · GA
Volunteer Agreement — Excerpt
Conduct & Authority
✓
I will observe and report only. I will not pursue, follow, intercept, or attempt to detain any vehicle or person identified during a mission.
✓
I will not approach or contact a suspect vehicle, occupant, or location. All findings route through the platform — never direct to officers.
✓
I understand I am not acting under the authority of any law enforcement agency, and I do not represent Carrollton PD or Amber's Angels in the field.
✓
I consent to a background check and acknowledge that platform access is revocable at the coordinator team's sole discretion.
Accepted by
Volunteer #1138
SIGNED · 2026-05-14 09:42 EDT
Volunteers cannot enter a live mission view until the current agreement version is on file. Updates re-trigger the gate.
Coordinator Audit Log
Every action by every coordinator is timestamped and immutable.
14:32:11
coord.05
opened mission AMB-2026-0514-01
14:33:42
coord.05
dispatched drone DJI-02 to obs-pt 34.5763,−85.0782
14:38:09
coord.05
detection #4421 · review CONFIRMED · conf 94%
14:38:11
system
lead handoff to CPD dispatch · ack received
14:42:55
coord.05
detection #4438 · review REJECTED · color mismatch
14:51:02
coord.07
second-look on #4451 · escalated to coord.05
15:06:30
coord.05
issued RTH to DJI-02 · battery 27%
15:14:18
system
alert AMB-2026-0514-01 resolved · session ended
CPD can request a full audit export for any closed alert — coordinator identity, review decision, latency to escalation, and outcome.
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
Coordinator Console
Coordinator-directed swarm dispatch.
The coordinator sees every available drone in Carroll County on the mission map, picks one, selects an operation mode, and dispatches it to a specific observation point. The system pre-fills the highest-priority coverage gap — the coordinator can accept or drop a different pin.
🚁
DJI-02 · Mavic 3 Enterprise
ONLINE · 87%
Operation mode
Observation point
SYSTEM SUGGESTION
📍
Old Carrollton Rd · gap fill
34.5763, −85.0782 · 1.4 mi from drone home
COVERAGE-GAP PRIORITY1 / 4
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
Volunteer Layer
When a drone can't reach,
When a drone can't reach,
the network does.
When the coordinator identifies a gap inside the alert polygon — and no drone is positioned to fill it — the platform pings nearby enrolled volunteers with a suggested drive corridor. They opt in per ping. They drive their normal vehicle. They never leave their lane.
Amber's Angels
14:34
Coverage gap nearby · 1.2 mi
Active AMBER Alert. Hwy-5 South has no coverage right now. If you're already heading that way, accept to drive the corridor.
Not now
Accept ping
VOLUNTEER · OPTS IN PER MISSION
Why this is safe
1
Drive normally
Volunteers drive their own vehicle on a public road. They do not deviate to follow anyone.
2
Phone mounted, hands-free
Camera runs as a passive scanner. Volunteer never sees a match or a subject identity.
3
Coordinator gate stays in place
Any detection follows the same coordinator review path as a drone hit.
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
Operational Reliability
Three things coordinators
Three things coordinators
handle in real time.
Drone fails. Backend errors. Alert cancelled mid-mission. Here's what the coordinator sees in each case — and what happens without any manual intervention.
Drone Failure
Battery + return-to-home, one click.
Every active drone reports battery and GPS once per second to the coordinator console. Below 30%, the coordinator gets a soft warning; below 20%, the system pre-stages an RTH command for one-click execution.
27 %
CPD sees drone status on the same map. One operator, full situational awareness.
Backend Failure
Errors surface to coordinators in seconds.
Backend errors — inference timeout, dispatch refused, IPAWS feed lag — post to the coordinator Discord with severity, mission ID, and a one-line cause. No silent failures during an active alert.
AA
aa-bot 14:33
INFOmission
!
aa-bot 14:41
WARNinference queue depth ·
34 frames · regional GPU autoscaling!
aa-bot 14:51
ERROR
IPAWS feed stale > 60s · fallback to state CAPOn-call coordinator paged on ERROR · CPD never sees the noise.
Alert Resolved
Platform stands down when the alert does.
When FEMA issues a Cancel message — or the alert window closes — the platform auto-deactivates the watchlist, purges non-matching plate data, and posts a stand-down to the coordinator channel. Volunteers are notified and go back to their day.
AA
aa-bot 16:14
INFOFEMA Cancel received ·
AMB-2026-0514-01 · stand-downAA
aa-bot 16:14
INFOwatchlist deactivated ·
3 plates removed · session data purgedAA
aa-bot 16:14
INFOmission
AMB-2026-0514-01 · status CLOSED · 31 volunteers notifiedStand-down is automatic — no coordinator action required to close the mission.
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
Privacy Posture
We save lives without building a surveillance state.
Every architectural decision starts with: what is the minimum data required for this mission? The platform is incapable of being used to track citizens outside of an active government-issued alert. The data retention policy is public.
Plate matches live only inside the active alert window. When the alert closes, every plate that didn't match the suspect profile is purged. We do not retain a database of plate reads for any other purpose.
No video archive
Frames are processed in real time and deleted. There is no searchable database of footage — not for any volunteer, not for any drone, not for any alert.
Operational necessity only
The platform stores only what an active mission requires. When the alert closes, the operational data closes with it.
Human in the loop
No AI result reaches a responding officer without coordinator review. AI flags. Humans decide. The audit log proves it.
Public transparency
Retention policy and per-pilot transparency reports are published — including false-positive rates and coordinator review latencies.
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
Why the numbers hold
Cascade inference —
Cascade inference —
beyond the plate.
Standard systems stop at plate text — so when plates are switched, obscured, or missing, they're blind. Our cascade scores plate, make, model, year, and color independently — multiple signals must corroborate before a detection escalates. That's what separates a coordinator reviewing a manageable set of strong leads from drowning in noise.
1
Object detection — YOLOv8
Vehicle detected and classified per frame, server-side.
2
Generational ID — MobileNetV3
Make, model, and year range identified with confidence score.
3
Plate OCR — OpenALPR + ONNX
Plate read, cross-referenced to the CAP-issued suspect profile.
4
Multi-signal corroboration
Plate + VMMC match → high confidence. VMMC alone (plate switched) → flagged for review. Single signal alone → rejected.
Example coordinator alert — no plate needed
"Blue 2018–2021 Honda CR-V, Carroll County Hwy 5, 14:32. Confidence: 94%."
5-Signal
cascade: plate · make · model
color · body type
color · body type
~30%
False positive rate
plate-only systems
plate-only systems
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
Built for Georgia's
full alert stack.
The platform activates across every government-issued alert type Georgia uses — including three that are Georgia-specific. One network, one coordinator gate, trained once for all of them.
AMBER Alert
Abducted children
Primary mission. Closing the golden hour gap for child recovery cases.
FEMA IPAWS · NCMEC
Levi's Call ★
Child abduction — Georgia
Georgia's state-level child abduction alert, issued by GCIC. Same pipeline, same response.
Georgia Crime Information Center
Silver Alert
Missing seniors
Dementia and Alzheimer's patients who wander and become lost.
FEMA IPAWS · state issuance
Mattie's Call ★
Developmental disabilities — Georgia
Georgia-specific. Adults with developmental disabilities who go missing. Issued by GBI.
GA Bureau of Investigation
Purple Alert
Missing w/ disabilities
Missing persons with any qualifying disability designation.
State emergency system
Blue Alert
Endangered officers
When one of yours goes missing or is endangered in the line of duty — the same network activates for you.
State emergency system★ Georgia-specific programs
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
Carroll County Pilot · 6 months
On the ground
On the ground
in Georgia.
Our initial deployment in Carroll County — mixed rural and suburban terrain, active relationships with veteran community organizations, and the geography to make the coverage math demonstrable.
-
1
Enroll and train 30 ground volunteers and 5 Part 107-certified drone pilots — all ToS-gated and coordinator-vetted.
-
2
Achieve operational readiness for live AMBER Alert response, including a CPD-observed tabletop exercise.
-
3
Demonstrate VMMC detection performance in controlled field exercises with CPD observers — including a false-positive rejection drill.
-
4
Publish a public transparency report with CPD's input — detection accuracy, review latency, retention compliance.
Impact Math · Launch
Active search nodes25
Road miles / node / alert~40 mi
Total added coverage~1,000 mi
Detection signals per vehicle5
Plate-only false-positive rate~30%
Seeking formal partnership with CPD. Active engagement from local SDVOSB veteran network. Proximity to Atlanta metro for AI model iteration and Part 107 instructor availability.
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
What we're asking of CPD
Two small things —
Two small things —
none of them funding.
We are not asking the department for money. We are asking for a formal posture that lets us deploy in your jurisdiction with your visibility, your input, and your discretion.
01
Tabletop Exercise Slot
A controlled walkthrough of the dispatch flow — coordinator console, swarm dispatch, audit log — fit into CPD's training calendar at whatever depth makes sense.
Your team validates the flow before any live deployment. CPD sets the scenario, scope, and time.
02
Partnership Cadence
A recurring touchpoint for the pilot duration — status, audit-report walkthrough, anything CPD wants reviewed.
Cadence and format set by CPD. Designed so you have continuous visibility without continuous burden.
One more thing
We're building this platform in public — and we mean that literally. Whatever you tell us in this room goes back into the product. Workflow gaps, liability language you'd want changed, protocol details we haven't thought of — we want all of it. The pilot we're proposing isn't just a test of the technology. It's how we make this thing worth deploying anywhere else in Georgia.
Not asking for
Funding · operational authority · use of CPD branding · access to CJIS · access to LE-only data.
Amber's AngelsCPD · 06.02.2026
Amber's Angels
When a child goes missing,
every second is the golden hour.
We are building the network that makes sure no corridor goes unwatched and no community goes unprotected. We would be honored to do it alongside Carrollton PD.
Thank you.
Executive Director
Grant Lindberg
Email
info@amberangels.org
Website
amberangels.org