New Statewide Test in MN on Thursday

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will be conducting a new type of test on Thursday, August 15. The Minnesota Blue Alert System was established in 2015 by the legislature to help locate suspects when a local, state or federal office is killed or seriously wounded in the line of duty.

The Blue Alert Test on Thursday will take place at 1:10pm. It'll be similar to the old Emergency Broadcast System alerts. It will also resemble the current Amber alerts that are issued when a child is missing. The wording will be somewhere along the lines of if this had been an actual Blue Alert, details of the incident would have been included. This is only a test of the Minnesota Blue Alert Plan.

Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission created a code for the Blue Alert System. Minnesota will be the first to test the alert using the code.