Shiprock, Navajo Nation, New Mexico
On May 2, 2016, eleven-year-old Ashlynne Mike and her nine-year-old brother, Ian, were abducted after school on the Navajo Reservation near their home in Shiprock, NM. Hours after the abduction, Ian was able to escape his abductor and subsequently would be found wandering in the desert, looking for help. Although her parents began frantic outreach efforts to find Ashlynne, a series of misunderstandings about the AMBER Alert process and jurisdictional hurdles delayed the issuance of an AMBER Alert until the following day, when Ashlynne was discovered brutally murdered in a remote area of the Navajo Reservation.
As a legacy to Ashlynne, AMBER Alert was brought to Indian country through the passage and signing into law of the Ashlynne Mike AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act in April 2018, nearly two years after Ashlynne was abducted. Since the law was passed, Congress has paved the way for tribes to access state AMBER Alert plans that have saved 957 children as of April 2019.
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (2018). Implementation of the Ashlynne Mike AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act of 2018: A Report to Congress (NCJ 252671). U.S. Department of Justice.