Teenager tells police she was not abducted
NO ABDUCTION: Girl, 16, planned to marry against mother's wishes.http://www.adn.com/2011/06/23/1932529/police-still-trying-to-determine.htmlBy CASEY GROVE
casey.grove@adn.comPublished: June 24th, 2011 07:43 AM
Last Modified: June 24th, 2011 07:48 AM
A teenager whose reported kidnapping triggered a statewide alert Wednesday later told police that she was not abducted and was in fact trying to run away with her boyfriend, police say.
The Anchorage couple told police they had planned to marry over the objections of the girl's family.
The reported abduction prompted a plea for help through the Amber Alert system, interrupting television and radio broadcasts as police sent officers scrambling to find 16-year-old See Moua.
Detectives on Thursday were still trying to sort out what happened and whether anyone should be charged with a crime, said police spokesman Lt. Dave Parker.
The girl's mother first reported the abduction, with Moua's 13-year-old sister acting as a Hmong translator, police said.
FAMILY DISAPPROVED
Moua and her alleged kidnapper, 20-year-old Yang Lee, told investigators they were getting married and had begun a days-long Hmong cultural marriage ceremony Tuesday at the home of one of Lee's relatives, according to police.
But Moua's family interrupted the ceremony and took her away because they did not approve of the relationship, the couple told police. Anchorage police described the couple's account in a statement to reporters.
After Moua's father left home Wednesday morning to go to work, the girl called Lee and asked him to pick her up so they could run away together, police said.
Lee and his friends entered the West Dimond Boulevard home about 9:30 a.m., Moua told police. She willingly went with them, she said.
With the girl missing, Moua's mother called 911. Using her 13-year-old daughter as a translator, the mother told dispatchers that unknown men had taken Moua from the home by force, police said.
The family gave investigators a description of a white Saturn Vue that might have taken Moua away.
After some quick investigation by an officer, Anchorage police dispatchers sent a request for an Amber Alert to Alaska State Troopers in Fairbanks, who initiated the alert, Parker said.
Amber Alerts are broadcast across the state in an effort to rally public assistance in the most serious cases of child abduction.
As Alaskans were warned to keep watch for any sign of Moua or Lee -- whose photo was being circulated by police as the teenager's possible kidnapper -- officers located the Saturn and its owner.
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Police soon found Moua and Lee at about 8 p.m. at a house in Fairview, Parker said. The teenager was unharmed.
Both Lee and Moua were interviewed and released, police said.
"The girl is safe, she's been returned home, and now we're trying to sort out what happened," Parker said.
In Hmong culture, a couple may become "culturally married" in a process that involves negotiations between their parents and a ritual ceremony performed by an elder. Though people in the community will see the couple as married, sometimes a couple will never marry legally. Cultural marriages can occur early in life, when one or both members of the couple are still teenagers.
NO HMONG TRANSLATOR
No charges have been filed in the case. That decision would rest with prosecutors once the investigation is complete, Parker said.
Detectives were still trying to determine Thursday whether Moua's mother purposely misled the investigators, or if language and cultural differences caused confusion over details in the investigation, Parker said.
"The indication was (Lee) was an unknown person at first, but it turns out this has been her daughter's boyfriend for some time," Parker said.
The Anchorage Police Department does not have Hmong translators on staff and instead uses an over-the-phone translation service when necessary, Parker said.
Moua's sister spoke English well, he said. It's unclear if she had difficulty translating her mother's words, or if her mother's words were false to begin with, Parker said.
Either way, the communication problems were not apparent at first, he said. "You have to take the report at face value when you receive it, because kidnapping is very serious business."
The police spokesman also defended the department's use of the statewide Amber Alert system. Police believed a minor had been abducted and forced into a vehicle, Parker said. "We go with the information we have at hand."
Meantime, the incident revealed potential flaws in the delivery of Amber Alerts in Alaska as some television viewers and radio listeners reported hearing garbled audio or otherwise struggled to understand the message.
Capt. Barry Wilson, the Alaska State Trooper who oversees the Amber Alert system in the state, said the Department of Public Safety is looking into what went wrong.
"Our ultimate goal is to do this right and to do it the best we can with the resources we have available to us," Wilson said. "And every time we've gone through this process, even though some of them have been questionable, they all gave us the ability to find errors or problems in the system we can now improve on."
Daily News columnist Julia O'Malley contributed. Reach Casey Grove at
casey.grove@adn.com or 257-4589.
Topic: 16 Year Old Hmong Girl in Alaska - Mistaken Abduction (Read 2211 times)