NORFOLK, Va. — Some 187,000 missing adults were too old for AMBER alerts in 2022 according to an FCC report, though some of those people could be helped with Ashanti Alerts. Now some are looking at a way for the alerts to help more people.
The FCC is finalizing some rules that would give law enforcement agencies a new option to issue Ashanti Alerts quickly.
Ashanti Alerts are named after Ashanti Billie. In 2017 the 19-year-old was abducted out of Norfolk and killed. At the time she was too old for an AMBER Alert and too young for a Silver Alert so no law enforcement alert was ever sent out.
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The year after her death and to help locate other missing adults who may have been abducted, like in Ashanti's case, the state of Virginia, and later Congress, created the Ashanti Alert. The alerts apply when a missing person is over age 17 and either suffers from a documented medical or physical disability or when their disappearance may not have been voluntary.
Since then, there have been updates to the Ashanti Alert. The most notable was after Marie Covington went missing in 2022.
She was reported missing, two days later police issued an Ashanti Alert, and two hours after that her body was found.
As a result, policy was updated in 2023. Previously, local law enforcement had to alert state police about specific cases. After the update, Virginia State Police would contact local agencies about possible Ashanti Alerts once a missing person report was filed.
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Senator Mark Warner, D-Virginia, has advocated for the Ashanti Alert time and time again.
"If we can prevent even a few of these tragedies where someone goes missing, who is legally an adult but goes missing and potentially could be kidnapped or in harm's way, and we can engage the public to help find that person and prevent the kind of heartbreak that too many families face, then we will have done a good job," Warner told News 3 in 2023.
Now the FCC is looking at adding an event code for "Missing and Endangered Persons" or "MEP" to the national emergency alert system. That includes those qualified for an Ashanti Alert.
Ashanti's family expressed gratitude in an expansion of the alert system saying, "Ashanti is a guiding angel."
The FCC will vote on the final rules for the MEP code at an August 7 Open Meeting.
