Officials to
evaluate MAILE
alert process

The alert was sent out
nearly an hour after
an infant was missing

The state's first MAILE AMBER alert Wednesday was issued 24 minutes after police notified the media through e-mail that an infant was missing and nearly an hour after a pickup truck with the baby inside was stolen.

Police spokeswoman Michelle Yu said officials wanted to ensure that a child was missing -- and in danger -- before issuing the MAILE alert. But she also said that police and missing-child officials will meet next week to discuss how the alert was handled and whether the process can be streamlined and sped up.

"We are going to try to evaluate how we did and how we can do it better," Yu said. "That's our goal."

The baby girl was found uninjured in the truck in Moanalua about an hour after the vehicle was stolen in Nuuanu.

Missing Child Center of Hawaii Director Charlene Takeno said the faster the alert is issued, the better, but there are no national standards to follow.

"It just varies," she said. "The police have their policy. There's a certain procedure that they have to file, and we don't want to hamper or push the investigation."

She said the best chance of finding a missing child alive is within the first three hours of a disappearance.

In addition to the alert's timing, officials also will be looking at other problems.

For one, the alert was never broadcast on Oceanic Time Warner's more than 100 cable channels. Eric Uyeda, playback operations manager for Oceanic, said the company's system needs to be upgraded so it can transmit MAILE alerts.

"We want to participate," he said, adding they are working on the problem. The cable company is able to broadcast weather alerts on all stations but can send out MAILE alerts only on channels 2, 4, 9 and 13.

Also, the alert was not posted on automated highway signs.

State Transportation Department spokesman Scott Ishikawa said police contacted him about 3 p.m., asking him to ready information for the signs. They then told him to "sit tight" while they decided whether to issue a MAILE alert.

But even after the alert was issued, police did not give the go-ahead for information to be posted on the signs. Ishikawa said that was because preliminary reports that the child and stolen car had been found were coming in, and broadcasting the information could have caused confusion.

Police got a 911 call about the incident, which happened in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven near the intersection of Nuuanu Avenue and North Kuakini Street, about 2:27 p.m. Vaima Philpotts told police that she had left her 4-month-old girl, Tauhani, in the back seat of her pickup -- with the air conditioning on -- while she went inside the convenience store. When she came out minutes later, her car and baby were gone.

William Philpotts said last night that it was the first time his wife had left their baby in a running car unattended. He said the baby was sleeping and that she did not want to wake her up.

"Since this happened, we've gotten a lot of calls from friends and other people who had said they had done the same thing. They realize, as we do, how dangerous it is," he said. "As much as an inconvenience it is having them wake up, it's well worth it in the long run, avoiding the anguish and the terror of the reality of a situation like this."

At 2:51 p.m., police sent out an e-mail to the media notifying them a truck with an infant inside had been stolen. The notice was posted on the Internet and read on the air by radio deejays.

DHL Express dispatcher Lori Joaquin got the word from a co-worker and sent a text message to all her delivery truck drivers on the road.

By 3:18 p.m. -- five minutes after the MAILE alert had been partially issued -- DHL driver Curtis Vires sent a message to Joaquin saying he had found the truck in the parking lot of the First Assembly of God church at 3400 Moanalua Road. Vires found the baby uninjured in the back seat of the truck, which was parked and running with the air conditioner on.

Police were still looking last night for the man suspected of stealing the pickup truck. He is described as about 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighing about 200 pounds, with short hair and a goatee.

Wednesday's incident was the second time in 10 weeks that a running vehicle with an infant inside had been stolen, then later recovered with the baby uninjured.

"The last two times, we had happy endings. We never know what's going to happen the third time," acting Lt. Ursula Ortiz-Namoku said.

On March 29, 26-year-old Tema Tanu Tema allegedly stole a car outside the Golden Coin restaurant in Liliha. A 5-month-old infant was in the car's back seat, and the vehicle and baby were recovered less than an hour later.

Police are not pursuing child endangerment charges against the infant's mother, Ortiz-Namoku said. State Department of Human Services officials have decided not to pursue the case.

The MAILE AMBER alert is named after two children who were abducted and murdered: 6-year-old Maile Gilbert, who was taken from her Kailua home in 1985, and 9-year-old Amber Hagerman of Texas, who was killed in 1996. The alert is issued for any victim under 17 years old who is abducted and believed to be in a life-threatening situation.