A day-long search of south Everett and a statewide Amber Alert on Monday failed to find any evidence that a boy had been kidnapped, as had been reported by a young witness.

While the episode was unsettling, it was also encouraging.

The witness, a 10-year-old boy who attends Discovery Elementary, reported to school officials that he saw a younger boy grabbed off the street by a man. He said the man put his hand over the child’s mouth and pulled him into a blue van with tinted windows near the intersection of 120th Street SE and Meridian Avenue, a couple blocks from the school.

Dozens of Snohomish County deputies searched nearby neighborhoods and police officers stopped blue vans around the county. Deputies and school officials accounted for the whereabouts of every student at Discovery, nearby Voyager Middle School and 11 neighborhood day-care centers and private schools, including those who were absent. No small feat. In the end, authorities could not confirm that any child was missing and no child was reported missing.

The exhaustive police response should reassure all parents, and people who witness a crime, or think they have witnessed a crime, just how seriously law enforcement takes such reports.

The 10-year-boy deserves to be commended for speaking up and looking out for others. This was not a boy crying wolf, deputies determined. As parent Rose Wagner told The Herald, “… if (the boy) saw something, I’m happy he said something rather than not. It’s OK for our kids to speak up and say something.”

Exactly. And all children, and adults, need to be encouraged to speak up in all situations that seem suspicious, scary or out of place.

It was an eagle-eyed 15-year-old Missouri boy who gave police the description of a truck that led to the arrest of Michael Devlin in January after 10-year-old Ben Ownby was kidnapped. Ownby and Shawn Hornbeck, who was abducted four years earlier, were rescued because of Mitchell Hults’ detailed description of Devlin’s truck.

Some people are reluctant to get involved, regardless of what they might witness. But many more people, as community members, neighbors and fellow human beings, feel an obligation to watch out for each other. Kidnappings are rare, but house break-ins and car theft are not. If the people moving belongings out of your neighbor’s house are not, in fact, your neighbors, call the police. All suspicious activity should be reported.

In Monday’s situation, the 10-year-old Discovery student did exactly the right thing. So did the sheriff’s deputies, other law enforcement, school officials, parents and the media. A good learning moment for us all in the face of a frightening possibility.