An AMBER Alert has been issued for a Tonasket infant missing since Monday afternoon.

A court order was issued to place Joshua Pier in specialized foster and medical care. He was diagnosed with PKU metabolic disorder, his health is at imminent risk. The suspect is 18-year-old Gretchen Pier, who is 5-foot-4, 165 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. The vehicle is a gold 1989 Honda Accord, Washington license 351-YOU.

Anyone with information should contact the Okanogan County Sheriff's Office at 509-422-7232.

UPDATE 9:30 p.m. The AMBER Alert has been lifted. The infant was found in Sedro-Woolley in Skagit County, KOMO News reported.

Sumner school officials plan to resume classes Friday at Lakeridge Middle School.

The school sent students home this morning after diesel fumes from a backhoe began drifting into the school's ventilation system.

The fumes didn't sicken students.

District spokeswoman Ann Cook says the school will run the heating-ventilation system tonight and conduct additional air tests Friday.

About 550 students attend the middle school.

Here's the automated e-mail the district sent at 4:22 p.m. today:

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The mother at the center of Wednesday’s Amber Alert will not be able to see her two children for at least another week, a custody judge in Tacoma ruled Thursday.

Tivice Evans’ two children, 3-year-old Deon Brown and 1-year-old Zariyah Brown, were originally taken into state custody earlier this month after reports of abuse. According to the Department of Social and Health Services, Evans agreed to hand her children over to Tacoma police. Child Protective Services began an investigation.

On Feb. 12, CPS doctors reviewed the children and concluded that they had been abused. Doctors found lesions on Deon’s back, and Evans said that was because of a skin condition, but doctors concluded that the lesions were consistent with abuse.

Doctors noted multiple healing injuries on the boy, some of which were patterned scars, a sign of abuse, the DSHS reported.
Evans and boyfriend Ahzariya Yasharahla visited the children daily at the DSHS office on South State Street in Tacoma. On Wednesday, Evans asked Deon what he wanted to do, and the child asked his mother to take him home. She picked up the two kids and walked out of the office, while “security advised the mother not to leave,” according to the DSHS.

Security at the DSHS office cannot restrain parents, so security officers took down information on the family’s car.

An Amber Alert was issued for the children. After negotiating by phone with police detectives, Evans agreed to hand the children back to protective custody Wednesday night. Police detectives took the two away in front of the couple’s church sanctuary on South 21st and J streets in Tacoma.

“It feels like someone ripped my heart out and is stepping on it,” Evans said Wednesday night after watching her children being driven away by police.

It isn’t the first time the mother has dealt with Child Protective Services. She said she was investigated while living in Wisconsin but kept custody of the children.

At the hearing Thursday, the court said Evans will not have contact with the children at least until a Pierce County Juvenile Court hearing Wednesday.

The vehicle that was the subject of today's Amber Alert has been located, but the driver is not the subject authorities were looking for.

Tacoma Police said the gray, 2007 Nissan Sentra was being driven by another family member, not the mother who reportedly took her two children from a supervised visit at a Tacoma office this morning.

State social workers had taken Zariyah Brown, 1, and her 3-year-old brother, Deon Brown, from their home six days ago because of “extensive abuse,” the Amber Alert states.

The mother and her boyfriend were scheduled for a supervised visit with the boy and girl this morning at the Department of Social and Health Services Office on South State Street in Tacoma this morning.

Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said the children were taken during the supervised visit at about 11 a.m.

Zariyah is described as a black, 2 feet 8 and 24 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. Deon is black, 3 feet 5 and weighs 43 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes.

The mother, 24-year-old Tivice Evans, and her boyfriend, 25-year-old Ahzariyah Yasharahla, were reportedly driving the Sentra.

Anyone with information about the children or the car is asked to call 911

They're good theater, but don't do a whole lot, according to this Boston Globe article.

Here's a snippet:

In the first independent study of whether Amber Alerts work, a team led by University of Nevada criminologist Timothy Griffin looked at hundreds of abduction cases between 2003 and 2006 and found that Amber Alerts - for all their urgency and drama - actually accomplish little. In most cases where they were issued, Griffin found, Amber Alerts played no role in the eventual return of abducted children.

Thursday from 6-7 p.m. at Peace Community Center, 2106 S. Cushman.

Here's the link to our latest story about the missing girl.