Colorado cellphones received a Blue Alert on Thursday. What are those alerts?

Cellphones all over Colorado were pinged with an emergency Blue Alert Thursday evening. However, few people know about the system, which is rarely used.

Much like a Medina Alert or a Silver Alert, a Blue Alert is sent out by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to alert the public when a dangerous suspect is on the run. 

Specifically, the suspect that prompts the alert has been involved in a crime that killed or seriously injured a peace officer. 

The program was enacted in November 2011, when then-Governor John Hickenlooper signed it into law. The legislation mandated that the CBI act as the liaison between local law enforcement and the media to communicate immediate information regarding those specific cases. 

Colorado was the 13th state in the U.S. to enact a Blue Alert program. Florida was the first in the nation to adopt the system. 

So what does the process look like? 

When a peace officer is killed or seriously injured in a crime, the local law enforcement will notify CBI and request the alert be sent out. The CBI will then verify the accuracy of the information, using several different criteria: 

• Confirming the identity of the law enforcement agency and the reporting official
• All necessary information the agency may have that could help find and apprehend the suspect
• The incident meets the definition of "peace officer" and "life-threatening injury" as defined in the bill. 

The CBI then sends information to media outlets in the state, and the system that sends out push notifications to cellphones. 

The Blue Alert is then cancelled by the CBI when the agency requests. The bureau then notifies all media outlets.

You can read more about the Blue Alert at the CBI's website, and you can read the original bill from 2011 here.