A Wisconsin family is mourning the loss of their 5-year-old son, Prince McCree, found murdered in a dumpster a day after disappearing from their Milwaukee home last month.
Despite the parents’ plea for help from authorities, a state elected official is saying their request for an Amber Alert — a localized SMS notification system for missing children — was denied on a technicality.
In the state, there are very specific markers for Amber Alerts to be activated. First and foremost, the child has to be believed to be in serious physical danger or facing a life-threatening situation, contingent upon the availability of sufficient descriptive information about the child, the suspect, and/or the suspect vehicle, according to the state Justice Department’s website.
At the time, the family could not provide authorities with the name of a suspect or vehicle that might have been connected to Prince’s disappearance.
The Wisconsin Justice Department’s refusal to issue an Amber Alert has sparked debate with some politicians and activists, like state Sen. LaTonya Johnson, contending that the state’s stringent alert criteria hinder the search for missing endangered children, especially Black children who are often underreported by the media and met with apparent police indifference.
“I found out that one would not be issued because he didn’t qualify. That pissed me off. Something is wrong when a 5-year-old does not qualify for an Amber Alert,” said the senator to NBC News.
“If this was a little white boy, more would be done,” she told NBC she heard the family say.
Since its state’s implementation of the alarm over two decades ago, Wisconsin has only issued 57 Amber Alerts. The system has a 50/50 rate of recovering children 17 years and under.
Prince’s family initially believed his race had something to do with them not issuing the alert, according to the senator. But Johnson explained that the issue is the system. Some activists are pushing for a new system to be created called the “Lily Alert” for missing kids like the system’s namesake, Lily Peters and Prince, who do not meet the Amber Alert criteria.
Even if the Amber Alert had been issued for Prince, it would not have saved his life as authorities believe he was killed inside of the home and even before the mother knew he was missing.
No Amber Alert was issued in December 2022 when Khalilah Brister and her 7-year-old daughter, Tyrielle Jefferson, were found dead after disappearing. Their family members say the red tape prevented local authorities from from issuing the alert.
Police records state Prince, 5, died after being beaten to death with a 30-pound barbell and a golf club while he was playing video games in his home. The killers also stabbed the boy during the beating and dropped a ceramic birdbath on the child’s head.
Two residents of Prince’s household, 15-year-old Erik Mendoza and 27-year-old David Pietura, stand accused of this heinous crime. Police say they confessed to brutally assaulting the child before placing his lifeless body inside a garbage bag and discarding it in a dumpster.
Prince was discovered about a mile from his family’s home on Thursday, Oct. 26, “blood-soaked, bound, and gagged in a fetal position” in a dumpster a day after he went missing.
On Oct. 25, the day of his disappearance, Prince told his mother that he wasn’t feeling well, and she allowed him to stay home from school. He asked if he could play video games in the basement, which he had done many times before. His mother assumed he would be accompanied by Pietura, who often spent time with the child. However, when Prince’s mother ventured to the basement around 1 p.m. to check on him, she found it dark and empty.
She contacted the Milwaukee Police Department.
Officers canvassed the neighborhood and eventually conducted a search of the basement and discovered blood evidence. Pietura was questioned and ultimately arrested, after which, at some point, he told police he witnessed the Mendoza choking Prince in the basement until he became unresponsive. The teen — also taken into custody — and Pietura added that when the boy started to come to, they battered him until he was lifeless.
Pietura told police where to find Prince’s body on the morning after the boy disappeared, police say.
Both men are facing charges of first-degree intentional homicide, causing death through repeated physical child abuse, and hiding a corpse.
The 27-year-old was supposed to have a preliminary hearing on Monday but did not attend, as he has yet to be assigned a public defender. Mendoza is scheduled to appear in juvenile court on Nov. 28.
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