Wake County sent three messages total during the manhunt. The first two messages were only sent to those in the Zebulon area.
The third message was sent around 11:30 p.m. Monday night relaying an "all clear," announcing that the suspect was in custody. It was mistakenly sent out countywide instead of just to people who live in the Zebulon area.
"We know that sending an incorrect lead, geo-targeted message means that potentially people feel like they got message fatigue," emergency management operations Darshan Patel said. "They look at it and they're like, this doesn't apply to me. We are fixing whatever that issue may be to make sure that something like that does not happen again."
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County officials are working with its vendor and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to learn why the "all clear" message was sent countywide, while other alerts were not.
The subject of the manhunt, 34-year-old Dustin Letchworth, who faces attempted murder and kidnapping charges, is now behind bars.
"We recognize how alarming it can be to receive an emergency alert unexpectedly, especially late at night," said Darrell Alford, director of Fire Services and Emergency Management for Wake County. "While our intention was to reassure the affected community that the suspect was no longer a danger, a system error caused the alert to reach a much broader audience than intended.
How did this error happen?
Wake County sent three messages total during the manhunt. The first two messages were only sent to those in the Zebulon area. The third message was sent countywide, but it was not intended.
County officials are working with its vendor and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to learn why the "all clear" message was sent countywide, while other alerts were not.
According to county officials, the message was sent to the distribution system with the same targeted area using a 'geofence', but the fence was not applied to the message. The system then automatically sends messages without a geofence to the entire county, so any potentially lifesaving information is not delayed from being sent out.
Alford said they appreciate everyone's understanding as they work with the vendor and FEMA to prevent issues like this in the future.
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