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An Amber Alert was issued Friday after a 3-year-old child was abducted by his mother in Nevada County, authorities said.
The California Highway Patrol and Nevada County Sheriff’s Office says Maverick Brown was allegedly taken by his mother in an unincorporated part of the county around 11:33 a.m. Authorities said the child was abducted during an assault on North Bloomfield Road near Grizzly Hill Road near the South Yuba Campground in about six miles northwest of Nevada County.
The mother, identified as Siera Salitrero, 30, took the boy on foot and was last seen heading southeast toward the South Yuba River. Authorities are concerned after Salitrero made “statements of self-harm toward herself.”
“Currently, we have 13 deputies and 35 search and rescue volunteers actively searching for the suspect and child,” the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office said at 5:35 p.m., minutes before the Amber Alert was issued statewide by the CHP.
Salitrero is described as a white woman, 5 feet 4 inches tall and 135 pounds with shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes. Authorities said she was last seen wearing a white T-shirt with a black sports bra and blue jeans.
Maverick is 3 feet tall with blonde hair styled in a mohawk.
Authorities are urging anyone who saw the mother or boy not to approach them and to call 911.
What is an Amber Alert?
The system (the acronym stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) was created by the California legislature in 2002 to notify communities of missing children and other people at risk after 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was kidnapped and murdered in Texas in 1996. She was brought to California after a similar incident involving 5-year-old Samantha Runnion in 2002, emphasizing the need for such program in the state.
When the CHP celebrated the program’s 20th anniversary in 2022, officials said the system had a 97% success rate in locating children in danger.
This Amber Alert, the first for the Sacramento region since disappearance and subsequent death of Kiely Rodniit happened only a few days ahead of the introduction of the new Ebony Alert program on January 1st.
It works similar to the Amber Alert system, which activates electronic highway signs to display information about the missing person in a coordinated effort to locate the individual. The Ebony Alert will be used for missing black youth aged 12 to 25.
Amber Alerts were once issued through the National Weather Service, but the CHP has since partnered with FEMA to use their Integrated…
