What is a Blue Alert in Texas and why is it issued hundreds of miles from an incident?

Many Texans woke up Friday morning in fear.

Seth Altman, 33, was on the run after shooting and wounding a police officer in Hall County, according to deafening emergency alerts that appeared on your smartphone around 4:50 a.m. But Altman — “wanted for involvement in the murder or …” serious injury to a law enforcement officer” — was last seen in an area southeast of Amarillo. That's hundreds of kilometers from the cities torpedoed by the early morning alarms.

The Department of Public Safety develops and issues blue alerts statewide when a person involved in the injury of a police officer cannot be immediately located.

Altman was last seen around 11pm on Thursday, about six hours before the Blue Alert was triggered, and the search for the man is still ongoing. Police Chief Rex Plant is currently in stable condition, according to local news reports.

Since then, Texans have resorted to social media to voice their displeasure with the state's emergency alert system. The Department of Public Safety did not respond to multiple calls and emails seeking comment.

What they say

Texans expressed concerns about the warnings, raising questions about the state's use of the warning system and the need to broadcast them hundreds of miles away.

Emergency and missing person alerts can be disabled in a smartphone's settings.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, the geographic precision of wireless emergency alerts is “continually improving.”

“Starting in December 2019, participating wireless carriers must further target their alerts geographically to technologically compatible phones: They must deliver alerts within the area specified by the alerter, no more than one-tenth of a mile,” the FCC notice said.

The Warning, Alert and Response Network Act directed the FCC to establish technical and operational requirements for the emergency warning system.

What is a Blue Alert?

Blue alerts can be broadcast to television and radio stations, cell phones and street signs. According to the National Blue Alert Network, they can also be issued when a person poses an imminent threat to law enforcement or when an officer goes missing in the line of duty.

Congress passed the Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu National Blue Alert Act in 2015 after two New York police officers were killed in an ambush the year before.

In Texas, law enforcement agencies must provide the Texas Department of Public Safety with a detailed description of the missing suspect and all available portions of a suspect's license plate. The department is then responsible for confirming the accuracy of the information and promptly issuing notifications throughout the state.

The alerts will end when the suspect is apprehended, when the missing person has left the state and when the department receives evidence that the alert system will no longer help apprehend the suspect, according to legislative documents.

The Hall County Sheriff's Office did not respond to calls seeking comment Friday.

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