AMBER Alert ‘live’ on Navajo Nation

WINDOW ROCK

The Navajo Nation AMBER Alert System is officially up and running.

According to Harlan Cleveland, emergency coordinator and acting director for the Navajo Nation Department of Emergency Management, the system has been “live” since the new year began.

“We made our deadline,” Cleveland said. “In the event we do need to issue and AMBER Alert, we can issue it on (the) Navajo Nation.”

The system has already helped law enforcement issue an endangered missing person advisory on the evening of Jan. 26 in Dilkon, Arizona. The advisory is not an AMBER Alert, but it didn’t mean the safety and recovery of a child was not as important.

The system not only includes all 11 counties that cover the reservation, but reaches as far as Pine Top, Arizona, Albuquerque, Blanding, Utah, and Flagstaff.

He added that if an AMBER Alert needed to be “pushed” at the state level, he could so that too.

For an AMBER Alert to be issued, he said five criteria needed to be met:

• A Navajo Nation Police officer has determined that the child is not a runaway and has not been abducted as a result of a child custody dispute, unless the dispute poses a credible and or specific threat of serious bodily harm or death to the child.
• The abduction poses a credible threat of immediate danger of serious bodily injury or death to the child.
• An abduction of a child (under 18) has occurred.
• There is sufficient descriptive information about the child, abductor and the circumstances surrounding the abduction to indicate that the activation of the AMBER Alert will locate the child and/or suspect.
• There is information available to disseminate to the general public, which could assist in the safe recovery of the child and/or the apprehension of a suspect.

In the case in Dilkon, all five requirements for an AMBER Alert were not met. Dilkon police issued an endangered missing person alert for 15-month-old Delilah Nelson. Police said her father, Shawn Nelson, who didn’t have legal custody, reportedly took her.

The next morning, Nelson was found. Two people were arrested.

On Friday morning, an endangered missing person advisory was issued by the Tuba City Police Department for a 3-year-old girl.

Since the system became active, the Navajo Nation has not issued an AMBER Alert.

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