Early Friday morning, the Texas Department of Public Safety issued a statewide Blue Alert for Seth Altman, a 33-year-old man suspected of seriously injuring a law enforcement officer. The alert, sent out shortly before 5 a.m., woke many Texans and started a manhunt across the state.
Altman was last seen around 11 p.m. Thursday in Memphis, Texas, a small town about 80 miles south of Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle. He was reportedly on foot in the 200 block of South 4th Street, heading toward U.S. 287. The suspect is described as a white male, 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighing 220 pounds, with red or auburn hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a blue T-shirt and blue jeans. Authorities consider Seth Altman armed and dangerous, warning the public not to approach him if spotted and to call 911 immediately.
While official details are limited, local news outlets reported that Memphis Police Chief Rex Plant was shot more than once on Thursday night. The officer was taken to a hospital in Lubbock for treatment but his condition still remains unknown.
The Blue Alert system, created in 2008, assists authorities in ensuring public safety and apprehending suspects accused of killing or seriously wounding law enforcement officers. This alert is one of the many public safety notifications used in Texas, alongside AMBER Alerts for missing children and Silver Alerts for missing elderly individuals. However, the early morning alert didn’t seem to go down well with some residents. Some users on X complained about being woken up for an incident that occurred hours earlier and far from their location. Some comments read:
- Totally unacceptable to blast alerts at this hour. You have no right to intrusively blast sirens on our private phones while we sleep. Who approved this?
- Waking the whole state up before 5:00 am for something that happened at 11:00 last night is a sure fire way to get everyone to turn off their government alerts.
- Why the whole state of Texas has to be alerted ..still don’t know this
- Why in the f*ck are you waking up the whole damn state when I’m fucking 6 hours away????
- AMBER ALERT 4AM IN MORNING IS CRAZY. YOU’RE GONNA MAKE PEOPLE TURN OFF THEIR AMBER ALERTS. I FEEL LIKE YOU COULD HAVE WAITED TILL 6AM.
Regardless of that, the Texas law enforcement agencies are still urging the public to remain vigilant and report any information that could lead to Seth Altman’s arrest.