Amber Alert Issued in Washington

Most news articles I have read indicated that Washington State Police activated an AMBER ALERT concerning Nicole Butcher abduction of her two sons, Preston and Parker from their home in Kittitas, Washington. However, they failed to mention that she has legal custody of these two children. The articles also indicated that Nicole left a suicide note to her husband, which is also incorrect. The father never married Nicole therefore no paternity on his part has been granted through the courts. The so-called suicide note was a note indicating that she “would never keep the children from seeing their father” and that she “was leaving with the children to a safe environment”. The relationship between Nicole and the father have been under stress for the last year. They were in the process of splitting up the material belongings as the father indicated that he was relocating to a different residency. Some news stories indicated that Nicole cleaned out the house, which is also a fabrication of the news media. Allow me to clarify what household items that she had in her possession when she arrived here in Nevada. The total amount of household items were zip, zero, none. The total belongings in her possession were Nicole’s and the children clothes, which consisted of six trash bags. Why did Nicole leave when she has family in the Ellensburg/Kittitas area? Nicole and her children have been here in Nevada for three days now and still have not heard from her mother how she or her grandchildren are doing or if they had arrived safely. I ask you “What type of support did she have there from this side of the family?” Every successful AMBER ALERT contains clearly defined activation criteria, which require law enforcement to confirm abduction prior to issuing an alert. Clearly, stranger abductions are the most dangerous for children and thus are primary to the mission of an AMBER ALERT to allow significant information that an abduction has occurred. However, in the event of Preston and Parker's Amber alert lead to the abuse of the system which has the potential of weakening future Amber alerts and effectiveness. The purpose of the AMBER Alert is to provide a rapid response to the most serious child abduction cases. When an alert is activated law-enforcement agencies immediately gain the assistance of thousands of broadcast and cable listeners and viewers throughout the area. The plan relies on galvanizing the community to help safely recover the abducted child. The resources in Amber alert costs the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in law enforcement agencies. The Amber alert was never intended to be used for locating children who have runaway from home, missing children taken by a non-custodial relative in a child custody case, lost children, or incidents when a law enforcement search is underway for a criminal suspect, i.e., murder, bank robber, rapist, and in which a child is involved. Without going in to further detail I thank all of you for your concerns on the safety of my grandchildren and my daughter. They are safe and well here in Winnemucca Nevada. John Butcher