VINE system returns after days of leaving Kentucky victim advocates in the dark

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Krista Gwynn lost her son to gun violence in December 2019. She depends on VINE to give her updates about the man convicted in her son's murder, but the service went down statewide, and some false alerts went out saying certain inmates were released.

Kentucky Department of Corrections said in a news release this week that they were aware of a "vendor-caused issue" with the Victim Information and Notification Everyday system that sent false alerts indicating some inmates were released from state custody. Kentucky DOC said the information is incorrect and should be disregarded.

The VINE system came back online late Thursday afternoon. The DOC said no personal data or information was compromised.

"It was in the middle of the night," Gwynn said of the message she received saying the system was down. "My first thing was 'Why is vine texting me?' ... I thought to myself 'How are you down? People depend on you.'"

Gwynn looks out for alerts from the system about Jameko Hayden, the man convicted of killing Christian Gwynn six years ago.

"To depend on just this one source, we're up a creek," she said.

During the outage, victim advocates contacted victims by phone for any inmate scheduled to be released during this time. Victim advocates also scheduled automatic email notifications to send important information to victims.

Those inmates who have been released during the outage, in accordance to state law and end of their sentence, are listed on the VINE website.

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