ROSA Plan: what to do when an adult woman goes missing

It is the alert plan for adult women. Puerto Rico has a family of alerts — AMBER for minors, SILVER for people with Alzheimer’s or dementia, Ashanti for adults generally, Mayra Elías for hit-and-run, Azul for law enforcement officers — and ROSA is the piece dedicated to the disappearance or kidnapping of a woman eighteen or older. The law gives you two concrete things: who decides, and what you have to accredit.

The Plan covers a woman eighteen (18) years or older who, from the facts related to the Police and the circumstances, could be understood to be missing or kidnapped. Whoever alerts may be any citizen, so long as they can accredit the conditions and circumstances for which they understand the woman is missing or has been kidnapped. If the missing person is a minor, the corresponding alert is AMBER; if an adult who does not fall under ROSA, Act 1-2021 created the Ashanti Alert.

• That it be a woman eighteen (18) years or older who, from the facts related to the Police Bureau and the circumstances, could be understood to be missing or kidnapped.Verified against the official source
• That the citizen who alerts the Police accredit the conditions and circumstances for which they understand the woman is missing or has been kidnapped.Verified against the official source
• That the Police Bureau have determined that, from the account given, those requirements are met.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: Go to the Police: they are the primary agency

   The law says it plainly: “The Police Bureau of Puerto Rico, attached to the Department of Public Safety, shall be the primary agency responsible for operating the Plan.” It is not a filing at the Women’s Advocate’s Office, although that office takes part in the decision. Start where the complaint is filed.

2. 2

   Step 2: Be ready to accredit, not only to report

   The second of the three criteria is the one that depends on you: “the citizen who alerts the Police Bureau of Puerto Rico about this person’s disappearance must accredit the conditions and circumstances for which they understand the woman is missing or has been kidnapped.” The law uses the word accredit and neither defines it nor lists documents. We are not going to invent a list: bring everything that supports your account — when you last saw her, with whom, messages, broken routines, whatever there is — and be clear that the criterion is explaining why you believe she is missing, not simply saying she is not answering.

3. 3

   Step 3: The decision is joint: Police and Women’s Advocate

   This is what sets the ROSA Plan apart from the other alerts. Article 2 provides that “The Police Bureau, together with the Office of the Women’s Advocate, shall determine whether or not to activate the protocol.” And Article 3 repeats the formula for the public alert: in cases that warrant it, the Police “together with the Office of the Women’s Advocate, may determine to issue a public alert.” It is not a unilateral Police decision.

4. 4

   Step 4: It may not be activated precisely because there is danger

   It helps to understand this beforehand so it does not read as abandonment. Beyond the three criteria, the law orders a separate evaluation: the Police “shall evaluate whether the circumstances surrounding the woman’s possible kidnapping or disappearance indicate she is in danger of death or of receiving grave bodily harm and shall determine whether activating the Plan could put the victim at greater risk.” That is, the publicity itself may be the risk. A refusal to issue the public alert does not mean there is no investigation.

5. 5

   Step 5: Who is in the protocol and who joins voluntarily

   The protocol “shall include the Office of the Women’s Advocate, the municipal police forces, the Department of Transportation and Public Works,” and adds that “any other state, federal or municipal public entity, private company, as well as any media outlet, may voluntarily participate and join this collaborative effort.” The key word is voluntarily: no outlet is compelled by this Act to broadcast anything.

6. 6

   Step 6: The Act sets no deadline, and we say so

   It is the most important difference from the other alerts, and we would rather say it than have you discover it while waiting. Act 132-2009 gives the SILVER Alert six (6) hours and Act 1-2021 gives the Ashanti Alert twenty-four (24) hours, both written into the text. Act 149-2019 contains no deadline: neither to activate the protocol nor to issue the public alert. Nor does it fix the wording to be read or order the use of DTOP’s electronic road signs, although it does include DTOP in the protocol. If a deadline exists, it comes from the coordinating committee’s rules, which this Act orders but does not reproduce, and which we did not read.

7. 7

   Step 7: Who writes the rules and who spreads them

   Article 4 provides that the Police “shall designate a ROSA Plan coordinating committee, which shall issue the necessary norms, rules or regulations.” Article 5 splits the dissemination: the Police Bureau’s Commissioner is to disseminate those norms, and the Women’s Advocate shall disseminate the information “through informational pamphlets, conferences, public service messages on radio and television stations that voluntarily wish to participate, and through non-profit and community-based organizations that support women.”

The complaint is filed with the Police Bureau of Puerto Rico, the Plan’s primary agency. The Office of the Women’s Advocate takes part in the activation decision and in dissemination, but the entry door is the Police. If the disappearance comes with an ongoing domestic-violence situation, that is a different route and we have separate guides for the protection order and for legal advocacy.

• Waiting twenty-four hours before reporting: this Act imposes no waiting period, and the criterion is the account and the circumstances, not the clock.
• Going to the Women’s Advocate first: it takes part in the decision, but the primary agency is the Police.
• Arriving with only “she is not answering her phone”: the criterion is accrediting the conditions and circumstances for which you believe she is missing or kidnapped.
• Assuming the public alert will issue: the Act allows withholding it if activating could put the victim at greater risk.
• Expecting every outlet to broadcast it: media participation is voluntary.
• Looking in this Act for a six- or twenty-four-hour deadline: those belong to the SILVER Alert and the Ashanti Alert, not to the ROSA Plan.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Policía de Puerto Rico

  Policía de PR

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov