Community questions delay in Amber Alert for Navajo girl

Several hours after a stranger abducted an 11-year-old Navajo girl as she played near her home, few outside the reservation knew she was missing.

Cellphone alarms jolted New Mexico residents at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, giving the first warning beyond the Navajo Nation to keep watch for Ashlynne Mike and the man who lured her into his van. He took the girl and her brother Monday afternoon soon after they got off the school bus in a desolate stretch of the reservation.

Ashlynne Mike

The Amber Alert's delay has drawn sharp criticism from those who believe more could have been done to find Ashlynne alive, while others said issuing it earlier would have made little difference. Officials and community members said it took too long for information to get from the tribe to the outside authorities who could help, wasting precious search time.

"My phone buzzed, and I realized that this has gotten really serious. Why did it take so long for the Navajo Nation to issue an Amber Alert?" said Rick Nez, president of the tribe's San Juan Chapter, where Ashlynne lived.

The country's largest American Indian reservation does not have a system to issue its own child-abduction alerts, and a fraction of the 566 federally recognized tribes do.

In most cases, state authorities coordinate with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to send word about abductions of children in danger of serious injury or death.

Efforts for the Navajo Nation to implement its own alert system have not materialized. The tribe was one of 10 named in a 2007 pilot project through the U.S. Justice Department to expand Amber Alerts into Indian Country.

Heidi Jose, a relative of Ashlynne's, said she long has felt Navajo police are slow to react to reports of missing people and requests for help from residents. She and dozens of others questioned the delay between the time police learned the girl was missing and the time surrounding agencies got word to provide reinforcement.

"Why is it that they're not snapping their fingers, you know, and saying, 'A child is missing. OK, let's go'?" Jose said. "This is something that for them -- the Navajo police -- is a wake-up call."

Navajo police Capt. Bobby Etsitty said the delay stemmed from a lack of information on the abduction and the suspect and from the time it took to notify outside authorities.

Tribal officials didn't know a man in a maroon van had nabbed the children until the 9-year-old brother arrived at a police station in the New Mexico community of Shiprock, having been picked up by a passer-by.

The boy said the man took his sister into the hills and returned without her.

Ashlynne's body was discovered Tuesday morning. Tom Begaye Jr., a man who wasn't well-known in the community, has been charged in federal court with kidnapping and murder.