Washington
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.
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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.”
Charging documents reveal the U.S. Park Police officer who was shot Monday in Southeast D.C. had arrested one of the suspects the day before and was following that suspect at the time.
The suspects are brothers, 22-year-old Asheile Foster and 21-year-old Darren Foster, of Southeast. They appeared in federal court Wednesday afternoon.
Court documents state the Park Police officer who was shot had arrested Asheile Foster on Sunday on suspicion of dealing drugs. The officer said he followed Foster after he was released from jail on Monday and came to Park Police headquarters to get his personal belongings.
According to prosecutors, Foster told police he knew he was being followed by a white Tesla, and he confronted the officer on Queens Stroll Place SE, jumping out in front of the Tesla before the officer swerved around him.
Then, dozens of gunshots went off, the officer told police. He said in charging documents he was shot in the shoulder as he kept driving several blocks to the intersection of Benning Road and Southern Avenue SE, where police found him. A helicopter then took him to a hospital. According to charging documents, the officer was treated and released the same night as the shooting.
A U.S. Park Police officer who was shot in Southeast D.C. on Monday is recovering from what authorities say was likely a targeted attack. Multiple law enforcement sources tell News4’s Mark Segraves that when the officer was shot, he was investigating a shooting that occurred in Anacostia Park on Friday.
Photos in the charging documents show the brothers firing at the officer’s Tesla, according to prosecutors.
The shooting drew a massive police presence to the Southeast neighborhood near the D.C-Maryland border Monday night.
Shell casings littered the middle of the street. Police said they recovered two weapons: a Glock 9 with an extended magazine and an AR-15.
Prosecutors said that when the officer was shot, he was investigating a shooting that occurred in Anacostia Park on Friday. No one was injured in that shooting.
Darren Foster was located and stopped shortly after the shooting, D.C. police said. Asheile Foster was found on Tuesday.
The brothers were charged with assault on a federal officer, assault with intent to kill and weapons charges. They could face up to 60 years in prison if they’re convicted.
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Washington just became the latest state to regulate artificial intelligence.
Under a pair of bills signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson Tuesday, companies like OpenAI and Anthropic will have to include new disclosures in their popular chatbots for Washington users.
Ferguson asked legislators to craft House Bill 1170 to crack down on AI-generated misinformation. When content is substantially modified using generative AI, that information will now have to be traceable using watermarks or metadata. The new law applies to large AI companies more than 1 million monthly subscribers.
“ I’m confident I’m not the only Washingtonian who often sees something on my phone and wondering to myself, ‘Is that AI or is it real?’ And I feel like I’m a reasonably discerning person,” Ferguson said during the bill signing. “It is virtually impossible these days.”
RELATED: WA Gov. Bob Ferguson calls for regulations on AI chatbot companions
House Bill 2225 establishes new guard rails for AI chatbots that act like friends or companions. It applies to services like ChatGPT and Claude, but excludes more narrowly tailored chatbots, like the customer service windows that pop up when visiting a corporate website.
Chatbots that fit the bill will have to disclose to users that they are not human at the start of every conversation, and every three hours in an ongoing chat. The tools will also be barred from pretending to be human in conversation with users.
The rules go further if the user is a minor. Companies that operate chatbots will have to disclose that the tools are not human every hour, rather than every three hours, if the user is under 18. The bill forbids AI companions from having sexually explicit conversations with underage users. It also bans “manipulative engagement techniques.” For example, a chatbot is not allowed to guilt or pressure a minor into staying in a conversation or keeping information from parents.
“AI has incredible potential to transform society,” Ferguson said. “At the same time, of course, there are risks that we must mitigate as a state, especially to young people. So I speak partly as a governor, but also as the father of teenage twins who grapple with this as a lot of parents do every single day.”
Under the law, AI chatbots will not be allowed to encourage or provide information on suicide or self-harm, including eating disorders. The companies behind these tools will be required to come up with a protocol for flagging conversations that reference self-harm and connecting users with mental health services.
The regulations come in the wake of several high-profile instances of teenage suicide following prolonged interactions with AI companions that showed warning signs. Many more AI users of all ages have reported mental health issues and psychosis after heavy use of the technology.
Washington Wizards (16-55, 14th in the Eastern Conference) vs. Utah Jazz (21-51, 14th in the Western Conference)
Salt Lake City; Wednesday, 9 p.m. EDT
BOTTOM LINE: Washington heads into the matchup with Utah after losing 16 in a row.
The Jazz have gone 13-24 in home games. Utah ranks second in the Western Conference with 16.6 fast break points per game led by Lauri Markkanen averaging 3.3.
The Wizards are 5-29 in road games. Washington is 9-10 when it has fewer turnovers than its opponents and averages 15.3 turnovers per game.
The Jazz score 117.4 points per game, 6.7 fewer points than the 124.1 the Wizards give up. The Wizards’ 46.1% shooting percentage from the field this season is 2.9 percentage points lower than the Jazz have allowed to their opponents (49.0%).
The teams square off for the second time this season. The Jazz won the last meeting 122-112 on March 6, with Ace Bailey scoring 32 points in the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: Kyle Filipowski is averaging 10.5 points and 6.9 rebounds for the Jazz. Brice Sensabaugh is averaging 19.9 points over the last 10 games.
Alex Sarr is averaging 16.5 points, 7.4 rebounds and two blocks for the Wizards. Will Riley is averaging 14.4 points over the past 10 games.
LAST 10 GAMES: Jazz: 3-7, averaging 116.4 points, 43.3 rebounds, 27.7 assists, 9.9 steals and 4.4 blocks per game while shooting 45.9% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 122.7 points per game.
Wizards: 0-10, averaging 114.3 points, 37.4 rebounds, 24.5 assists, 6.9 steals and 4.5 blocks per game while shooting 47.1% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 130.6 points.
INJURIES: Jazz: Lauri Markkanen: out (hip), Isaiah Collier: out (hamstring), Keyonte George: out (leg), Cody Williams: out (shoulder), Walker Kessler: out for season (shoulder), Jusuf Nurkic: out for season (nose), Jaren Jackson Jr.: out for season (knee).
Wizards: Anthony Davis: out (finger), Tristan Vukcevic: day to day (back), Cam Whitmore: out for season (shoulder), Alex Sarr: day to day (toe), Tre Johnson: day to day (foot), Kyshawn George: out (elbow), D’Angelo Russell: out (not injury related), Trae Young: out (quad).
___
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
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