Between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Thursday, there will be a visible increase in the presence of law enforcement in the Weston area as police from 16 departments participate in a child abduction scenario-driven exercise.

On December 8, FBI Miami will lead a child abduction training exercise designed to improve interagency coordination and response times. The exercise involves about 60 local, state, and federal law enforcement officials and numerous residents from the city of Weston who volunteered to be role players. This-day long training event caps a week of classroom work and practical exercises addressing such topics as AMBER Alerts, working with the media, and various investigative techniques and resources.

The exercise Thursday begins with a phone call reporting a 12-year-old child is missing. Over the next six hours, the participating law enforcement officers will organize to investigate and recover the missing child to include operating a command post, conducting interviews with residents who are role-playing as part of the scenario, and even a mock press conference at 10 a.m. inside Weston’s Emergency Operations Center. The exercise concludes around 2 p.m. with the recovery of the child at a nearby park.