FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024

Contact: Tony Mangan, Communications Director, 605-773-6878

PIERRE, S.D. — South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley announces that the South Dakota Child Abduction Response Team (CART) this week held a child abduction exercise in Pierre.

“The Child Abduction Response Team is essential in any child abduction case, and these exercises help hone our investigative skills,” said Attorney General Jackley. “Thank you to all of those agencies that participated and to Hughes County Sheriff Patrick Callahan for leading the exercise.”

CART is a team of individuals from various local, state, and federal agencies, jurisdictions and disciplines who are trained and prepared to respond to a missing, endangered or abducted child. This multi-agency team is designed to immediately mobilize and combine local, state, and federal resources for the lead investigative agency when a child goes missing under suspicious circumstances.  

The exercise involved the abduction of a missing child who was later safely recovered. Volunteers served as family members, staff, witnesses, and suspects.

CART team members who participated in this exercise were the State Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), U.S. Marshals Office, U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), South Dakota Department of Public Safety, South Dakota Highway Patrol, Sioux Falls Police Department, and Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office. The Hughes County Sheriff’s Office assisted.

The CART team is supervised by DCI. The team is federally certified.

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