Briant Rodriguez is Missing: Tips Pour in from Surveillance Photos

It has been a week since 3-year-old Briant Rodriguez was abducted from his San Bernardino, California, home by two gunmen who warned his mother not to call the police. The FBI and California authorities have been inundated with tips since Thursday when a photo were released of two Hispanic men buying tape at a nearby home improvement store two days prior to the robbery / abduction. Another photo of the old model green Ford Bronco the two men were driving has also sparked interest and generated tips. In all, over 350 tips have come in over the hotline set up for the Briant Rodriguez investigation since the photos' release.

Google has entered the search as well. When the user types in "Briant Rodriguez," a "missing poster" will pop up on the right-hand side of the page with information regarding the missing child. Bob DeLeo, executive director at Google, said, "This is very, very serious. This is beyond an abduction. The more images you have out there, the more likely it is that the perpetrators will be turned in and the child will be found."

The FBI has moved the Briant Rodriguez case to the top of their Facebook page.

Added to the composite sketches of the two Hispanic men issued earlier in the week, the police have been working on numerous tips. San Bernardino police said they had a significant lead and were following up on it but could not talk about it because any information given might jeopardize the investigation.

One investigator, Sgt. Doug Hubbard, said at a Tuesday conference: "Every minute, every second that passes, is critical. But we are remaining positive and investigating it as if we just went on scene."

Authorities refuse to speak of motive, although there are countless theories. The most disconcerting is that the two gunmen were part of a drug cartel that traffics in humans or ransom demands. The gunmen told Briant's mother, Maria Rosalina Milan, that they were taking her child to Mexico to kill him.

Authorities are hoping that the gunmen issued the warning simply to buy time for their escape. They also told Milan not to contact the police.

There are roughly 200 abductions for ransom per year in southern California, according to a former FBI profiler, Cliff Van Zandt. He told the Press-Enterprise that drug cartels were responsible for a majority of the abductions that did not involve family members. He also predicted that there were going to more abductions in the United States as time goes by.

Drug cartels use children as leverage, as a weapon, to get what they want. Usually what they want involves money or drugs or simple retaliation for some infringement or infraction. Taking the child is simply a warning to the family (or the transgressing family member) that they mean business. But captors generally know at least one member of the family.

Milan swears that her family is not involved in anything illegal. Briant's father was at work when his son was abducted.

Thus far, there has been no demands for a ransom.

The search for Briant Rodriguez began shortly after his mother called police Sunday, May 3. Two armed gunmen had burst into her house, bound her and her five children with red duct tape, ransacked the house, stole some money and a cellphone, then grabbed little Briant Rodriguez and told Maria Milan not to call the police. The men spoke nothing but Spanish and were Hispanic, according to Milan.

San Bernardino police notified state authorities around 11:30 p.m., about nine hours after the robbery and abduction took place, and an Amber Alert was issued for Briant Rodriguez. Border agents were notified at the time to also be on the lookout for the missing boy.

But there are fears that Briant and his captors may have made it across the border into Mexico before the alert went out. The Press-Enterprise reports that billboards on both sides of the U.S-Mexico border are showing pictures of Briant Rodriguez with numbers to call with information regarding his whereabouts.

Over 5,000 flyers were handed out in San Bernardino County Saturday.

The Sun reports that the reward offered for information regarding Briant Rodriguez has been increased from the original $25,000 put forth by the FBI to $50,000.

But the crucial moments seem to have come between 2:30 p.m., when the robbery / abduction took place, and midnight, just after the Amber Alert was first issued for the missing child. It is unclear when Maria Milan first called the police, whose headquarters are only a few blocks away from her house, but the robbery is said to have taken only about 20 minutes. After the gunmen left with Briant, one of Briant's bound siblings, an 8-year-old boy, managed to free himself, then other members of his family. Maria Milan immediately went to a nearby liquor store pay phone and dialed 911.

From the time the San Bernardino police received the 911 call and dispatched officers to investigate to the time they made the determination that an abduction had taken place and decided to notify state authorities to issue an Amber Alert (11:30 p.m.) are very crucial minutes. It is in those minutes that two gunmen either went to ground (into hiding) or made their way across the U.S - Mexico border, which is only a hundred miles from San Bernardino.

Several images of 3-year-old Briant Rodriguez have also been released. In case the gunmen have cut his past-the-should black hair, there is also an image of what the child would look like with his hair cut short.

Anyone with any information regarding the whereabouts of Briant Rodriguez or about the robbery / abduction at his San Bernardino home are asked to call the toll-free information hotline at (866) 346-7632.

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Sources:

PE.com

SBSun.com