Starting November 15, 2016, the FBI’s Child Abduction Rapid Deployment (CARD) Team, with the assistance of several law enforcement partners, will be in Tucson conducting a four-day training for federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. This training will provide attending agencies with the necessary skills and investigative techniques to successfully respond to a child abduction. Classroom training will take place at the Tucson Police Department Miracle Mile Station and a mock abduction field training exercise will be held in Oro Valley.

This training scenario has been conducted with great success in several places across the country, including Texas, Nevada, Louisiana, Rhode Island, North Carolina, and New Jersey.

Participants will receive instruction from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit and the Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team. A variety of topics will be covered by instructors including an overview of child sex offenders, understanding the behavior of child abductors and false allegations of abductions.

The training culminates Friday with a field training exercise during which investigators will put to use the skills and techniques to solve a mock child abduction. The full-scale exercise will be held in the Rancho Vistoso Community near La Canada Drive and Moore Road.

Participants of the class will work with the Arizona Child Abduction Response Team (AZ-CART) and will be the initial responders to incidents in the Southern region of the state. The class is a joint venture between federal, state, and local agencies initiated by the FBI’s Phoenix Field Office and the FBI’s national Child Abduction Rapid Deployment (CARD) team.

FBI CARD Teams are designed to provide on-the-ground investigative, technical, and resource assistance to state and local law enforcement. CARD Teams are primarily involved in non-family child abductions, ransom child abductions, and mysterious disappearances of children. They work with state and local law enforcement to protect and save the lives of innocent children.

The CARD team, created in 2005, has been deployed more than 100 times for approximately 108 victims, both domestically and—when requested—abroad. More than 100 attendees from 15 agencies across Southern Arizona are taking part in the Tucson training and more than 40 volunteers are acting as role players for the training.