It's Time to Choose a Hero

Final Voting Begins in Search for 2007 America's Most Wanted All-Star

(April 19, 2007) - For weeks, America's Most Wanted, television's top crime-fighting show, has been asking citizens to help give special recognition to the police, firefighters, EMTs and other first responders who protect us, by nominating them to become the 2007 AMW All-Star. Hundreds of nominations poured in, and online voting at AMW.com narrowed the field to eight finalists. Now, the public will choose one of these eight heroes to be the Grand Prize winner of the AMW All-Star Contest, sponsored by Sprint Nextel. Voting begins on Thursday, April 19th, and runs through Tuesday, May 8th.

Anyone can vote at AMW.com, once a day, every day. Sprint and Nextel customers can also vote by sending a special text message to "4AMW" (4269). Details of the text messaging codes and the full rules of the contest can be found at AMW.com.

The eight All-Star finalists are:

Police Officer Dale Farmer of Kingsport, Tennessee. Officer Farmer is credited by local residents with helping to reverse an alarming rise in traffic accidents and fatalities.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Mani Puri of New York. Deputy Puri has been taking down fugitives for more than a decade as part of a special Task Force.

Police Officer Carl Andolina of Buffalo, New York. Officer Andolina was seriously wounded in a shootout, but ignored his injuries to protect a wounded partner and take the gunman down.

Sheriff's Deputy David James of Richmond County, Georgia. Deputy James was shot in the line of duty. Despite being left near-blind and suffering from other serious complications, he reports for duty every day.

Sheriff Gary Toelke of Franklin County, Missouri. Sheriff Toelke has been at the center of some of the nation's most high-profile missing children cases.

Police Sergeant Jon Brough of Belleville, Illinois. Sergeant Brough was shot and critically wounded during a standoff with a double homicide suspect, and his determination to survive and recover has been inspiration to his colleagues and friends.

Maryland State Trooper First Class Eric Workman. Trooper Workman has twice overcome life-threatening injuries in the line of duty, and returned each time to the job he loves.

Volunteer Firefighter Thomas Colter of Jeff Davis County, Georgia. Thomas Colter is well-known in his community for answering any emergency call, day or night, "sleep or no sleep."

AMW host John Walsh will present the 2007 AMW All-Star winner with a check for $10,000 at the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series� All-Star Challenge at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina.

- AMW -