WRIC Richmond News and Weather - Efforts to Get Chip Alert Bill Passed
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FROM 8NEWS
A bill named for murdered Chesterfield teen Chip Ellis will face its first hurdle with a House subcommittee Wednesday. 8NEWS has more on the efforts to get the bill passed.
The grass-root effort to get the Chip Alert bill passed has taken off on the internet. Take a look, this is the Chip Alert page on the popular Facebook website. We're told 5,000 people have joined it to show their support.
Chip's friend Colin Ward says, "It's been overwhelming the people who've come together to make this happen and to help us out."
Colin Ward lead the efforts to find his missing friend last May, now he's working tirelessly to make. Chip Ellis is not forgotten. Ellis was carjacked and killed after leaving the library. Because he was 18-years-old, his family could not issue an amber alert. Under state guidelines, only 17 and younger, can be featured on the statewide emergency alerts.
The new Chip Alert amendment would make any high school student eligible for an alert, no matter how old they are.
Ward says, "Chip was all about helping people. It makes me feel good to do the same thing, to help people. Hopefully, prevent anything like this from happening in the future."
Just last week at the official announcement of the Chip Alert Legislation, Ward showed off hundreds of letters of support that he had gathered from students in the Midlothian community. He plans to present those and thousands of emails from the websites to legislators Wednesday.
Ward says his work will not be done there. Ward says, "I'm going to make a website, chipalert.com, and try and get this passed in every state because it's important, it's not just here in Virginia."
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