By Scottie Hunter
Published: Jun. 14, 2024 at 5:54 PM CDT|Updated: Jun. 14, 2024 at 7:01 PM CDT
LORANGER, La. (WAFB) - Many people are wondering what took so long for an AMBER Alert to be issued as the search for two missing girls from Tangipahoa Parish played out on Thursday, June 13, 2024.
Daniel Callihan is locked up and accused of killing a woman and snatching her two daughters. That woman’s body was found in her home in Loranger around 8 a.m. on Thursday. The local sheriff’s office quickly sent emails to the media with an urgent plea for help in finding the little girls, but it was many hours later-- at 12:28 p.m.-- before Louisiana State Police (LSP) put out an AMBER Alert and asked the Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) to put the information up on interstate signs. The AMBER Alert was canceled hours later after Callihan was captured in Mississippi after allegedly killing the younger of the two girls and dumping her body in the woods. When he was hunted down, Callihan was found with the older girl inside the mother’s car.
Tangipahoa Sheriff Daniel Edwards says he first reached out to LSP about the AMBER Alert at 9 a.m.
“We had asked for that and we called several times inquiring into what was taking so long and the only thing we were being told is ‘we’re working on it… we’re working on it’.”
Edwards said it was not until he called the head of the Sheriff’s Association, that the AMBER Alert finally went out.
“What the cause of the delay was, I can’t say but it was something that was very frustrating for us and I’m sure it was very frustrating for the family,” said Edwards.
LSP released a timeline of the events surrounding the issuance of the AMBER Alert, saying in part that the initial AMBER Alert form from the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office was incomplete.
RELATED: LSP releases timeline of AMBER Alert in Loranger child abduction case
Sheriff Edwards disputed those claims in a news conference Friday evening.
“I don’t want to get in a tit-for-tat with our partners who we work closely with, but if you look at the form all of the information that is asked for is contained on there,” said Edwards. “And I know that we reached out and asked a couple of times what is taking so long. They never told us there is incomplete or missing information. That’s not what was given to us. They said they were doing everything they could to move as quickly as they could.”
Stacey Pearson spent more than 20 years with LSP, most recently in charge of the AMBER Alert system, before she left to do consulting work. WAFB’s Scottie Hunter asked her if the alert on Thursday could have or should have gone out sooner.
“I can’t offer an opinion on that because I don’t have all the information,” said Pearson.
Pearson says AMBER Alerts are a critical tool used to find missing children and while every second matters in getting it out, there’s a lot more that goes into the decision.
“Along with the basic information like names, ages, height, weight, suspect description, and vehicle description, you also need appropriate photographs, and sometimes those photographs need to be cropped and sometimes they need to be enhanced,” said Pearson. “When a suspect is identified by name, generally you need an arrest warrant in place in order to share that information with the public. So all that information has to be in place and all those steps have to be completed before an activation can actually occur.”
RELATED: LSP says delay in AMBER Alert notification partially due to incomplete application
Even after an AMBER Alert is issued, Pearson warns the outcome of a case ultimately falls on the person who took the children and the timing of any alert system can be complicated and may even influence what the abductor decides to do.
“Most people have cell phones so the abductor is getting the alert just like everyone else so if we believe that the alert system has the ability to affect abductor decision-making in a positive way, we also have to look on the flip side of that, which is can the alert affect abductor decision-making in a negative way,” said Pearson.
Pearson says it typically takes about three hours from the moment LSP is contacted about a missing child to issue an AMBER Alert. According to data from the Department of Justice, out of 154 AMBER Alerts that were issued across the country in 2022 only 70 of them took three hours or less for the alert to be activated. Out of those AMBER Alerts, 84 of them took more than three hours to be issued and 15 of those cases were not tracked. While she cannot speak directly to what happened Thursday without all the facts, Pearson says it does seem to fall in line with the average timeframe for AMBER Alerts sent out across the nation.
“It was 12:28 p.m. when the alert was issued and that seems to fall within what is typical or what was typical last year,” said Pearson.
While it can be hard to deal with a tragic outcome, Pearson says it is only natural to look for somewhere to place blame. She says sometimes that can fall on systems like AMBER Alerts.
“When a child dies and when it’s a tragedy, it’s natural for us as human beings, as parents and just as concerned citizens to want to prevent that tragedy from happening again and when we have those feelings it’s natural to point fingers or try to place blame somewhere,” said Pearson. “It makes us feel better to find something to blame.”
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