Six-year-old Issac Hwang was returned safely to his mother after Pennsylvania State Police issued a Missing Endangered Person Advisory late on January 24th. Hwang was found in Cherry Hill, NJ on January 25th with his father and another male. His father, Jaemyung Hwang, and another unnamed adult male were taken into custody.

Below is a message posted to social media from the Cheltenham Township Police Department on what constitutes issuing an Ambler Alert.

Good morning. We are very grateful that through a well-coordinated effort across several law enforcement agencies, Issac Hwang was returned safely to his family yesterday. We did however get several inquiries as to why an Amber Alert was not issued in this case. We did submit the specifics of the incident for consideration of an Amber Alert on Sunday. But the fact of the matter is, CTPD does not decide which cases get Amber Alerts. The system is administered by the PA State Police, and there are specific criteria that need to be met. Since there was no clear evidence at the time that this was an abduction and not a missing person, they felt the criteria were not met and that the more appropriate alert was a MEPA – Missing Endangered Person Advisory, which was activated. That activation was very helpful, and we were able to quickly resolve the situation. We hope this helps explain a bit for those who had questions. Thank you to all who shared our post and helped us get the word out. Have a safe day!