A license plate reader alert allowed East Ridge and Chattanooga police to help the FBI find a missing 13-year-old Florida girl on Monday, September 28, 2026, NewsChannel 9 reported. FBI investigators sent an alert that a vehicle carrying the girl had been flagged in East Ridge; the plate was detected at an intersection near an I-75 exit ramp. Within minutes, officers from both departments were searching the area, and they found the girl with a 28-year-old man who was not related to her.
At a glance
- Agencies
- East Ridge Police, Chattanooga Police, FBI
- Missing since
- Sept. 18, 2026, from Fort Myers, Florida (per the Lee County Sheriff’s Office)
- Alert
- Sent by FBI investigators on Sept. 28, 2026
- Detected at
- An intersection near an I-75 exit ramp
- Response
- Officers were searching within minutes
- Found
- The girl, with a 28-year-old man not related to her
How the plate reader helped
This is what the report says about the technology’s role.
- The FBI sent an alert that a vehicle carrying the girl had been flagged in East Ridge.
- The plate was detected near an I-75 exit ramp.
- Officers from two departments searched the area within minutes and located the vehicle.
The outcome
- The girl was found and removed from a dangerous situation, per the police chief.
In the news
“A license plate reader alert allowed East Ridge and Chattanooga Police to help the FBI find a missing Florida teen on Monday.”
The excerpt is quoted word for word. The rest of this page paraphrases the same report, so names, dates and figures are the reporter’s or the agency’s, not ours. Where a report does not say something, we do not guess.
Context and caveats
- The Lee County Sheriff’s Office later said the man found with the girl is a Tennessee resident; the matter was an active multi-state investigation.
License plate readers are one investigative tool among several. They flag vehicles and give investigators leads; officers, detectives and the public do the rest, and every lead still has to be verified. For how agencies govern the technology, see our policy and data-retention guide and the accuracy guide.
How Intelvi AI fits
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Frequently asked questions
How quickly did officers respond?
Within minutes of the alert, officers from East Ridge and Chattanooga were searching the area, NewsChannel 9 reported.
Where was the girl from?
She had been missing from her home in Fort Myers, Florida, since September 18, per the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.