Washington

2 years in, Washington's alert system for missing Indigenous people is working

Published

1 day ago

October 14, 2024

2 years in, Washington's alert system for missing Indigenous people is working

Washington state was first in the nation to implement alerts specific to Missing Indigenous Persons more than two years ago. By the end of August this year, the State Patrol had issued 114 of those alerts, with the subject being located in all but 13 cases.

Law enforcement officials say these alerts play a crucial role in locating teenage runaways and have proven valuable in longer-term cases as well.

You’ve probably seen Missing Indigenous Persons Alerts in your email or online. They’re issued by the Washington State Patrol, at the request of local law enforcement, and they often feature the person’s photo, their age and some details about their disappearance.

Earl Cowan is the chief of police for the Swinomish Tribal Community, northwest of Seattle.

“As a chief of police for a native sovereign nation, it’s a great tool for us to put information out about somebody missing from our community to a very, very wide base very quickly,” he said.

RELATED: FCC adopts an alert system for missing Indigenous people

Cowan said statewide alerts are key. His agency requested one that located a 2-month-old infant being transported far south of the reservation by a non-tribal family member.

The alerts are meant to correct historic disparities. According to the Washington State Patrol, Native Americans are nearly 2% of the state’s population but nearly 6% of its missing persons’ cases.

The disparities and lack of data on many cases were highlighted in a groundbreaking 2018 report by Seattle’s Urban Indian Health Institute which led to calls for more action, including the Attorney General’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force and the recent establishment of a cold case unit.

As part of these efforts, the Washington Legislature mandated the new alert system in March 2022.

Mike Williams is Chief of Police for the Suquamish Tribe, on the Kitsap Peninsula. He calls the alerts a huge step forward. He said the majority of alerts he has requested are for juvenile runaways, as with one recent case where the young person was spotted quickly on public transportation.

“We got a wave — I mean 10 or 15 — tips within a half an hour on a runaway we had, that was on a train in downtown Seattle,” Williams said.

Many of these young people run away more than once. Williams said he takes the alert process seriously each time.

At the Washington State Patrol, Carri Gordon oversees all the state’s missing person alerts. She said juvenile runaways make up the majority of the alerts, partly because federal law imposes strict requirements on police to enter missing persons in the National Crime Information Center within two hours of notification if the person missing is age 20 or younger.

Gordon sees the alerts as effective at getting runaway youth to make contact.

“I raised teenage boys and no teenager wants their poster plastered all over Twitter that they’re missing,” she said. “And when they see that, they’re like, ‘Oh crap, they really want to find me.’ And they turn themselves in.”

RELATED: Washington’s first missing Indigenous person alert is issued

Rosemarie Tom is the Legal Advocate and point of contact for families of missing persons at the Lummi Nation Victims of Crime office near Bellingham. Lummit Nation tribal police initiated the state’s first Missing Indigenous Persons Alert after the system was created.

Tom said coordination between tribal and non-tribal law enforcement on missing persons has dramatically improved: People are being located in weeks rather than months.

“It is extremely rapid, we have everyone on board, there’s very clear communication and documentation that I have not seen in the past,” Tom said. “So it’s been really transformative and wonderful support.”

She said that urgency is vital because human traffickers pose a huge risk to these teenagers.

Traffickers “can transfer them overnight over 100 miles or even across state borders with the promise of a better life or a nice relationship or, ‘It’s us against the world,’ and they usually start with romantic relationships,” she said.

With the improvement in jurisdictional issues and communication, Tom said tribal officials are turning their attention to addressing the situations that can prompt young people to run away, including domestic violence, mental health and substance use issues and other root causes.

“The alert and the response itself is very positive,” she said. “The aftermath and the recovery is a very different story. These aren’t happily-ever-after situations most of the time.”

The State Patrol’s Carri Gordon said one surprise has been that Missing Indigenous Persons Alerts have brought breakthroughs in some longer-term cases as well.

Thirty-five-year-old Besse Handy had been missing for more than a year when her mother asked state patrol to send out the alert.

“At the time we were like, ‘Oh, I don’t know, that wasn’t really the intent of the program,’” Gordon said. “But the more we thought about it, we did it, and because of that a lot of things about the case itself came to light.”

Like the fact that Handy’s file lacked DNA and dental records to help identify her. Meanwhile, Handy’s mother Connie Samuels had been desperately searching for her daughter, even dreaming that Besse was back home.

“Because there’s always that little thing of hope in your mind that goes, maybe I’m going to see her again. Maybe I’ll find her. Maybe she’s alive,” Samuels said. “That never stops.”

RELATED: Colorado’s new alert system is helping to locate missing Indigenous people

Until you know for sure, she said. Thanks to the dental records, Samuels learned in January 2023 that Besse had died in a Seattle fire a year and a half earlier.

Now Samuels is raising the two children her daughter left behind. She says she hopes the Missing Indigenous Person Alerts can prevent those losses for the next family.

Dawn Pullin is one of the tribal liaisons at the Washington State Patrol who helps families navigate these searches. She said the alerts can take some of the burden off family members who in the past labored alone to get the word out, especially about missing adults.

“The success rate is amazing,” Pullin said. “What it does is it provides a professionalism to people searching for their loved ones, versus creating their own fliers or their own personal contact information on the internet.”

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Washington

ISP arrest man in connection to fatal shooting in Washington Park

Published

1 hour ago

October 15, 2024

Press Room

ISP arrest man in connection to fatal shooting in Washington Park

WASHINGTON PARK, Ill. (First Alert 4) – Illinois State Police have arrested a man in connection with a deadly shooting in Washington Park in March of 2024.

According to ISP, 22-year-old Steven Tiller Jr., of Belleville, Ill., has been arrested and charged with murder and unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon.

On March 29, ISP was requested by the Washington Park Police Department to investigate a homicide that happened outside of a business in the 6000 block of Forest Blvd. A man, identified as George Smith, 39, of East St. Louis, died at the hospital after he was struck by gunfire.

Following an investigation, ISP agents identified Tiller as a suspect and arrested him on October 11.

Tiller is being held at the St. Clair County Jail.

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Washington

Brooklyn Nets steamroll Washington Wizards in preseason game #2, 131-92

Published

9 hours ago

October 15, 2024

Press Room

Brooklyn Nets steamroll Washington Wizards in preseason game #2, 131-92

“I think we’re all excited. We’ve been working really hard. The whole month of September was just a grind for us, and I think everybody’s excited to kind of beat up on somebody else.”

That was first-year Brooklyn Net Shake Milton discussing the unofficial end to training camp, as Brooklyn’s preseason contest vs. the Washington Wizards on Monday night marked the beginning of real competition. Three preseason games this week, then the start to the regular season.

Ziaire Williams, are you also excited to beat up on somebody else?

“Yeah, one-thousand percent man. I’m tired of guarding Cam Thomas and Cam Johnson man, I’ve had plenty of reps against them.”

Preseason talk is to be taken with a grain of salt — as fans of the team that employs Ben Simmons well know — but every Net has emphasized how grueling Jordi Fernández’s inaugural training camp has been. Conditioning, hustle, effort, none of these drills too extreme, just more of them.

“You know, nowadays you go up and down two or three times, and they say your load is too high, right? So it’s not too much of that over here,” half-joked Williams.

So it’s no wonder Fernández — who spent much of the night windmilling his arm like a third-base coach to call for full-court pressure — called a timeout three minutes into Monday’s contest, following two possessions where Jordan Poole walked into buckets without any ball-pressure.

“We started okay, but we didn’t find a way to apply our ball-pressure like we’re supposed to, picking up full-court,” said Fernández.

However, his team responded strongly enough to finish the quarter with a 28-20 lead, while Nets fans likely noticed a development on the other end: Ben Simmons!

Simmons finished his 13-minute first half with a team-high 11 points, five boards, and two assists on 5-of-7 shooting. His last bucket, a hanging alley-oop tip-in from Dennis Schröder, didn’t break the backboard, but it did prompt YES Network’s Frank Isola to immediately say, “it looks like the surgery was successful.”

Simmons came out of the halftime break with the warm-up on; his night was done, but it was already a successful one.

Fernández admitted a clerical error on his part capped Simmons’ minutes at 13 (the plan was always a second-half break) while noting how his starting point guard did what he expected: pushing the pace, getting downhill, and finding the open man.

As for the rest of the game, the Nets ceded their lead to the Wizards midway through the second quarter. However, a Jaylen Martin/Jalen Wilson/Noah Clowney/Shake Milton/Ziaire Williams lineup may have been doomed from the start, and when the starters came back in, they immediately course-corrected.

Though Washington did miss many of their open looks, Brooklyn won the possession battle by only turning it over five times and allowing five offensive boards by the time main rotation players were subbed out toward the end of the third quarter.

“Well, this game, we put together a full game,” said Dorian Finney-Smith. “I feel like that first game we played in spurts; it was a full game, from the starters to the bench. Y’all got a glimpse of how coach wants to play, he wants to pick up full-court, wants to be disruptive and shoot a lot of threes.”

In that third quarter, Cam Thomas and Shake Milton, a couple of bucket-getting combo guards, reminded us that they do indeed get buckets. Thomas finished with a game-high 17 points, Milton with 16, and Jalen Wilson rounded out the trio with 14 points, with much of the trio’s collective damage coming in the third quarter…

As a whole, the Nets reminded us what having a handful of real NBA players looks like. No, Brooklyn will not be a good NBA team this season in part because, yes, they will trade some of those real NBA players to ensure a successful tank. But my god, the Washington Wizards are awful. Bub Carrington might be good though.

The Nets even ran up the score in the fourth quarter, entering the final dozen with an 89-70 lead and turning it into something much larger than that. Every player but Amari Bailey scored on the night, Noah Clowney dunked a couple times, and Tyrese Martin made some highlight plays.

As a nightcap, Cui Yongxi delighted the Barclays Center crowd (and his bench) with a couple buckets…

…and though he got a little ahead of himself by calling an iso that ended in an airball, it was a joyous end to the blowout.

“[He] plays with a joy man, and I love to see he’s always smiling,’ said Finney-Smith. “When you look at him play, you realize it’s just basketball because he always got a smile on his face.”

Cam Thomas, with an equally big smile, said of the moment: “Everybody got lit and then he called for the iso, so everybody just went went crazy. So it was good, definitely good. You know, everybody — we all like each other. I feel like that also helps us as a team. We all like each other.”

While Thomas’ reaction was nothing but genuine, it is easier to like each other when you’re winning. And the Nets won big on Monday night. It was even fun! Preseason, baby!

Final Score: Brooklyn Nets 131, Washington Wizards 92

Next Up

Photo by Adam Hagy/NBAE via Getty Images

Brooklyn will play their second of three preseason games this week on Wednesday night against the Philadelphia 76ers. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET from the Wells Fargo Center.

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Pandas from China en route to Washington, D.C. after National Zoo returned beloved animals last year

Published

17 hours ago

October 14, 2024

Press Room

Pandas from China en route to Washington, D.C. after National Zoo returned beloved animals last year

Two giant pandas were on the way from China to Washington on Monday less than a year after the National Zoo said goodbye to a pandas on loan from China.

The pandas — Bao Li and Qing Bao — departed Chengdu and are scheduled to arrive in Anchorage just before 10 p.m. local time, according to plane tracker FlightAware. From there, the bears will head to Dulles, with a landing scheduled around 9:55 a.m. ET on Tuesday.

“Something *giant* is coming to Washington, D.C. via the @FedEx Panda Express,” the National Zoo said in a Monday post on social media. “The Zoo will be closed to the public tomorrow, Oct. 15. For the safety of the pandas and staff, we will not disclose any additional timing.”

Giant Panda Qing Bao at the Dujiangyan Panda Center — Giant panda Qing Bao, born Sept. 12, 2021, at the Dujiangyan Panda Center.

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Roshan Patel/National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

The National Zoo first received pandas from China in 1972 after President Richard Nixon’s trip to China to open diplomatic and trade relations between the U.S. and China. China “has used pandas to pursue diplomatic objectives, a practice termed panda diplomacy,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

China in 2000 sent Mei Xiang and Tian Tian to the National Zoo as part of an agreement with the China Wildlife and Conservation Association. Mei Xiang and Tian Tian were supposed to stay in the U.S. for 10 years, but the agreement was extended several times. The pair of pandas in 2020 had a cub, Xiao Qi Ji.

Xiao Qi Ji and his parents were returned to China in November of last year. After they left, Zoo Atlanta was the only zoo in the U.S. with giant pandas. Their pandas are set to return to China at some point this year.

Then giant pandas returned to the San Diego Zoo this summer for the first time since 2019. And in May, first lady Dr. Jill Biden joined Smithsonian officials to announce pandas were coming back to the nation’s capital.

Bao Li, a 2-year-old male, was born in Sichuan to father An An and mother Bao Bao. He already has ties to the U.S.: Bao Li’s mother was born at the National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in 2013 and his grandparents, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, lived at the National Zoo from 2000 to 2023.

Qing Bao, the female panda headed to the U.S., is also 2 years old.

The pandas will be quarantined for at least 30 days after they arrive at the National Zoo, according to the facility. Quarantine will allow the zoo to reduce the risk of introducing parasites or disease to other animals.

They’ll then have a few more weeks to settle into their new home before their public debut. The Smithsonian Zoo has not yet shared a public debut, only saying that it will be announced “as soon as the animal care team feels the bears are ready to meet visitors.”

The giant panda is currently listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List.

The National Zoo is also home to red pandas.

Aliza Chasan

Aliza Chasan is a Digital Content Producer for “60 Minutes” and CBSNews.com. She has previously written for outlets including PIX11 News, The New York Daily News, Inside Edition and DNAinfo. Aliza covers trending news, often focusing on crime and politics.

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