Westminster Police are asking for help in their search for a 10-year-old girl last seen walking to school Friday morning in the area of 107th Avenue and Moore Street.

Jessica Ridgeway was seen walking to school at 8:30 a.m., but police say she never made it to school.

Westminster Police sent a tweet at about 9:20 p.m. stating that an Amber Alert was about to be issued.

Westminster Police spokesman Trevor Materasso earlier in the evening said an Amber Alert wasn’t issued immediately because of strict criteria that requires investigators to have a reasonable suspicion that an abduction took place.

“The difficult issue is we don’t have any information about where she might have gone,” Materasso said.

Jessica lives with her mom, who works a night shift and gets Jessica ready for school in the mornings, but lets her walk to a nearby park where she meets some classmates to walk the rest of the way to school.

The classmates say Jessica didn’t show up Friday morning.

Materasso said that when the school called home to say Jessica wasn’t in school, her mom was sleeping.

Jessica’s mom got the message just after 4 p.m. when she woke up, and that’s when she called police.

Jessica is described as 4 feet 10 inches tall, weighing about 80 pounds with blond shoulder-length hair. She has blue eyes, and was wearing a black jacket and pink and purple colored glasses.

Police have made reverse phone calls to more than 12,000 homes in the area. Jefferson County School District also made a notification call to more than 400 families of students and faculty members.

Bloodhounds and other K-9 units from Westminster and from other agencies have been helping search the area including all nearby trails, and parks.

Bad weather has kept police helicopters grounded, Materasso said.

Materasso said police have moved to doing door-to-door searches in the area.

Police are also asking the public not to go out searching themselves because it could disrupt the work of the K-9 units, but anyone interested in helping search can meet at the Westview Recreation Center at 108th Avenue and Oak Street.

Westminster Police are still calling in additional resources, and have no intentions of putting off the search for the night, Materasso said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police by calling 303-658-4360.