AMBER ALERT

[missydog1]

centipede, no one said she was more special or less. What a question! You sound a bit callous. She was from Hawai'i, and here is the horrible way she was killed in 2005.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=11847162

Her father went on to found an independent search and rescue foundation for missing children, even though in Maile's case her body and killer were found quite soon.

Here is a history of the beginning of the Maile Amber Alert in 2005, 20 years after Maile's death. It describes the criteria for an alert.
http://archives.starbulletin.com/2002/12...tory3.html

Maile's name has also been made an acronym:

Minor Abducted in Life-threatening Emergency.

[centipede]

KathyH, you misunderstand me. The issue is why there is a separate name for an abduction here in Hawaii when, to the best of my understanding, it's Amber everywhere else in the country. I refuse to read how she died because I am sensitive to such horror.

[missydog1]

Read the Star Bulletin article about the implementation of the alert in Hawai'i. It doesn't have the gruesome details. I can't "explain" it for you because I don't see anything difficult to grasp about Hawai'i deciding to honor one of its own. Hawai'i was the very last state to sign up for the program, and when it did it Hawaiianized the name of the alert, which met with general approval, and that's what it's called here. There is no issue. It just is. I read somewhere that only one has been issued to date, since 2005 when it began.

[PaulW]

Wikipedia knows all:

An AMBER Alert is a child abduction alert bulletin in the United States and Canada, as well as other countries, issued upon the suspected abduction of a child. AMBER is officially a backronym for "America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response" but was originally named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old child who was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas in 1996. Exceptions are in Georgia, where it is called "Levi's Call",[1] Hawaii, where it is called a "Maile Amber Alert",[2] and Arkansas, where it is called a "Morgan Nick Amber Alert".[3] Those plans were named after children who went missing in those states.

[centipede]

Thanks, PaulW. I really should spend more time on Wikipedia.

[missydog1]

Or you could have clicked the Star Bulletin link I gave you, which has more info on the Maile Amber than Wikipedia, and has a link to the AMBER page at the bottom.
Not that I don't use Wikipedia. I do.