BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — Louisiana Rep. Dixon McMakin is pushing to change the way Amber Alerts are handled after two girls were kidnapped in Tangipahoa Parish.
On Thursday, McMakin sent a letter to Gov. Jeff Landry and State Police Col. Robert Hodges saying Louisiana’s Amber Alerts system was “tedious” and that the state could “set a new standard of excellence by modernizing the process.”
6-year-old Jalie and 4-year-old Erin Brunett were reported missing after their mother was reportedly found in the bedroom of her home on North Cooper Road in Loranger, La.
Around 9 a.m., Tangipahoa Parish deputies requested Louisiana Clearinghouse for Missing and Exploited Children (LACMEC) to contact them to begin the Amber Alert process.
The alert went through several systems before being shared on social media around 12:20 p.m. and broadcast over the emergency alert system around 12:30 p.m.
Erin was found deceased in a wooded area in Mississippi and Jalie was sent to the hospital.
“While I know we are investigating what happened in this instance, we should improve our state’s AMBER Alert process,” McMakin said in his letter.
McMakin said every second counts in Amber Alert situations and he looks forward to their responses.
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