A proposed state law named for 14-year-old Emily Pike — a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe who went missing and was later found dead — would not have applied to her disappearance. That’s because the bill, now known as Emily’s Law, would only cover missing people from 18 to 65 years old.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Teresa Martinez, a Republican from Casa Grande, responded to questions from Arizona Luminaria Thursday about whether the bill would have covered Emily.
“Oh, you know what, you’re right, actually, now that you say that, you are right,” Martinez said by phone. “But they are going to refer to it as Emily’s Law.”
She added that there was still time to clarify the measure because “what we want to make sure is that Emily would’ve been covered under this law, hence us naming it the Emily Pike Law.”
The brutal murder of 14-year-old Emily Pike reignited attention on Missing and Murdered Indigenous People and brought renewed urgency to addressing systemic injustices Indigenous communities face.
Emily went missing from a Mesa group home in January and, at the time, her case received little attention. She was labeled a runaway. Since she also wasn’t suspected of being abducted, her disappearance didn’t meet Arizona’s criteria for an Amber Alert.
Weeks later, Emily’s body was found on Valentine’s Day near Globe, almost 100 miles from where she disappeared.
Her story has since become a rallying cry for Arizona officials advocating for the new law that was initially meant to create an alert system for missing Indigenous people.
Yet, as it’s currently written, the measure would not have helped in Emily’s case since she was a minor, which falls outside the proposed legislation’s age criteria. It also stipulates that the missing adult has to be considered endangered, a designation that often excludes runaway cases like Emily’s.
Bill proposes new Turquoise Alert system
House Bill 2281 — introduced in January before Emily’s disappearance was widely known — proposes the creation of a new Turquoise Alert System under the Department of Public Safety. The alert would be initiated at the request of a law enforcement agency investigating a report of a missing person 18 years and older, but under 65. The bill also stipulates that law enforcement must first exhaust all local resources and that the missing person is in danger.
Once triggered, notifications would be distributed statewide for the missing Indigenous or endangered person, similar to the state’s Amber and Silver alert systems.
Martinez sponsored the bill along with Indigenous state Reps. Brian Garcia, Mae Peshlakai and Myron Tsosie, all Democrats. Martinez explained during a March 12 committee hearing that the concept for the bill came from Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis, a staunch advocate for MMIP.
The introduced version focused exclusively on missing Indigenous people but was amended in February to also include non-Indigenous endangered people and establish age parameters over 18, which would have excluded Emily’s case.
After it was amended the first time, Martinez said the legislative measure was meant to help locate missing people who fall outside the bounds of the Amber and Silver Alerts. Amber Alerts apply to children who are abducted and Silver Alerts apply to people 65 and older with cognitive or developmental disabilities, according to DPS, which manages the state’s alert systems.
“These alerts are fantastic but we leave off a segment of the population who go missing and the state of Arizona doesn’t even know to look for them, and I mean we don’t even try,” Martinez said at the time.
Thursday’s amendments broadened the bill’s scope yet again by removing the term “Indigenous” entirely from its language. It instead states that the definition of person “includes a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe,” which excludes Indigenous people who are not enrolled in their tribe or are from unrecognized tribes like the Hia-Ced O-odham.
The change comes at a time of growing scrutiny toward DEI measures, including the Trump Administration’s recent removal of a landmark MMIP report from federal websites. However, Martinez told Luminaria she didn’t think that had anything to do with the changes.
The measure will next go before the Senate for a third read vote before heading back to the House for another final vote, according to Andrew Wilder, Arizona House Republican spokesperson. If the bill passes, it will then go to Gov. Katie Hobbs, who could sign it into law.
The concept of an alert system for Indigenous people began in 2022 with Washington implementing a first-in-nation Missing Indigenous Person Alert System. It was meant to specifically address the high rates of violence Indigenous communities face nationally.
Unlike Arizona’s currently proposed bill, Washington’s system added missing Indigenous people of any age to the endangered missing persons alert already in place. The change aligned with an effort to address the ongoing injustice of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, according to a Washington State Patrol news release.
California, Colorado and New Mexico have also implemented their own alert systems for missing Indigenous people.
Arizona is home to 22 federally-recognized Tribal Nations, and was identified in an early study as having the third highest number of Indigenous women and girls going missing or being murdered in the country.
In 2020, a legislative study found that 160 Indigenous women and girls were murdered in Arizona between 1976 and 2018 — a total that steadily increased in those 40 years. Additionally, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System showed just over 90 Native Americans were reported missing in Arizona as of Thursday.
Arizona Luminaria recently launched an MMIP database, where just under 100 women and girls who are missing or were murdered are reflected so far. That data has shown that women ages 19 to 46 accounted for about 70% of all the cases — an age group that would fall under the potential new law as it’s currently written.
Just over a quarter of the Amber Alerts issued in 2023 resulted in a successful recovery as a direct result of the alert being issued, according to the Department of Justice’s most recent annual report about the Amber Alert system nationally.
“Of the success stories in 2023, 72% of the children were successfully recovered within three hours of those Amber Alerts being issued,” the report states.
In Arizona, only one Amber Alert was issued in July 2023. A baby who required medical treatment was taken from the hospital by his mom. The alert was issued for the 5-day-old infant at 6:55 p.m. He was found safe nearly three hours later.
Runaway children often overlooked
When an alert is triggered in Arizona, the public is immediately warned and encouraged to keep an eye out and report possible sightings of the missing person.
However, some state law enforcement officials argue that simply being labeled as missing or a runaway, like Emily, doesn’t always mean the person is in danger, which is typically a stipulation to initiating a public alert.
A growing number of criminal justice experts argue any missing child under 18 should immediately be considered endangered and spur calls for the wider public’s help — before it’s too late.
In fact, one in seven of the more than 29,000 children reported missing in 2024 are likely victims of sex trafficking, according to data reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The average age these children are first trafficked is 15.
Native American children are at a greater risk. Indigenous youth 18 and under “are missing at a disproportionate rate to their representation in the overall U.S. population of children,” according to a 2023 congressional report. In just this year alone, Emily and 12 other Indigenous teenage girls have been reported missing in Arizona, the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s missing children database showed as of Thursday.
In total, there were 817 children logged as missing in the database as of Thursday, of which 147 were boys and 158 were girls reported missing just this year alone.
A guide shared by ASU’s Center for Problem-Oriented Policing shows juvenile runaway cases are often given lower priority compared to other missing persons cases. Law enforcement agencies can also face challenges responding to runaway cases, such as limited resources, competing demands and not being able to legally detain runaways, the guide states.
“Running away is not a crime,” states a Phoenix Police Department webpage.
“The primary responsibility of the Phoenix Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit is for missing persons who are truly missing. Yes, there is a difference between a missing person and a runaway,” the department’s site states. “A missing person case has an unexplained disappearance; whereas the runaway has a motive to disappear and does not want to be found.”
The department’s guidance shifts the responsibility for protecting children who have run away to families or guardians.
Reports from the Mesa Police Department reveal Emily ran away from the same group home at least three other times in 2023. A study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence has shown that children who run away repeatedly are at greater risks of getting in trouble and homelessness.
Despite the repeated incidents, none of the department’s reports classify Emily as being in danger even as investigators recently noted she was “on medication for mental health and behavioral issues.”
Arizona officials spoke with Arizona Mirror about another separate federal initiative that could potentially address some of the gaps in existing state and tribal alert systems. The Missing and Endangered Person alert code, overseen by the Federal Communications Commission, would enable alerts to be broadcast via TV and radio for missing Indigenous people who don’t meet the criteria for other alert systems, like the Amber or Silver alerts.
The code would be available nationally, however, guidelines on implementation and operations have not yet been released.
In an earlier committee hearing about Arizona’s alert bill, Gov. Lewis said he hoped Emily’s case would be a lesson.
“I testified in early February that this legislation is critical and it will save lives, but little did I know at that time, Emily Pike, a 14-year-old member of San Carlos Apache Tribe, had been missing for weeks,” Lewis said. “She was found brutally murdered nine days after that testimony, I can’t help but think, what if this law was in place early, would Emily be alive today?”
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