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City Waited to Issue Abduction Alert Because It Didn't Have Girl's Photo

By  Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska and Katie Honan | December 16, 2016 12:40pm | Updated on December 17, 2016 12:43pm

 Officials said they needed time to obtain photos of Latifa Crump that could be sent to alert the public after her biological mother took her from Jamaica Hospital on Dec. 14., police said.
Officials said they needed time to obtain photos of Latifa Crump that could be sent to alert the public after her biological mother took her from Jamaica Hospital on Dec. 14., police said.
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NYPD Missing Person Squard

UPDATE: Candice Crump was taken into police custody Friday afternoon after she was found in a Bronx shelter with her 3-year-old daughter, Latifa Crump, who she did not have custody of, police said. Crump's 4-month-old son, Jaedn Crump, was also found with his mother who does have custody of him despite earlier reports, police and sources said. Crump was charged with custodial interference, police said.

QUEENS — The city waited nearly 10 hours to alert the public about a 3-year-old girl who was abducted by her mother on Wednesday — despite the fact that authorities believed the child to be in danger — because they needed time to obtain photos, officials said.

Three-year-old Latifa Crump was found in a Bronx shelter Friday afternoon after she was taken by Candice Crump, 41, who does not have legal custody of the child, after the two of them were seen together at Jamaica Hospital at 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 14, according to police. Crump also had her 4-month-old son, Jaedn Crump, with her who she does have custody of despite earlier reports, police sources said.

Latifa was taken to the hospital after her father, Ricky Jones, pulled her from her mother's arms and swung his hand at Crump, hitting both her and their daughter during a battle between the parents at Lexington Inn, at 138-05 Jamaica Ave., where Crump rented a room for one night on Dec. 13.

Jones, 46, was arrested after the incident, but Latifa wasn't reported missing until 5:15 a.m. on Dec. 15, when Jones' girlfriend called police to say she never came back from the hospital to their home in Queens Village, where Jones lives with his daughter, his girlfriend and several other children, police and sources said.

Yet the city did not alert the public of the missing children until roughly 10 hours later — when the city's Office of Emergency Management sent out a tweet at about 3:42 p.m.

Nancy Silvestri, a spokeswoman for OEM, said the agency was waiting for the photo of the child to become available before tweeting the information out.

"When we have a photo we get a much better engagement ... because people really actually have a sense of who to look for," she said. 

An earlier tweet from the 103rd Precinct posted to Twitter at 2:16 p.m. Thursday asked for help finding a missing woman who "possibly" had two children with her. The tweet included a photo of Crump, along with her name, but did not include any mention of a child abduction or a photo of either of the children or their names.

A spokesman for the NYPD said that the department asked the state police to issue an Amber alert — used to alert people in New York and around the U.S. about missing children — but the state police did not issue one. 

"Our investigators determined that it did not meet the criteria," said Beau Duffy, a spokesman for the state police. 

Duffy added that for the state police to issue an Amber alert, a child has to be "believed to be in danger of serious bodily harm or death."

The NYPD did contact the Missing Child and College Student Alert Programs ran by the state's Division of Criminal Justice Services Missing Persons Clearinghouse, which issued a missing person alert regarding Latifa around 2:30 p.m. Thursday, according to the DCJS.

Latifa had a cut on her nose while her mother suffered a cut to her lip in the argument that turned physical at the Jamaica hotel Wednesday, police said.

Jones was arrested and charged with assault, child endangerment and harassment, police said. He is due back in court on Jan. 27. He had 29 prior arrests between 1989 and 2009, including for drunk driving and assault, according to authorities.

Attempts to reach Jones' attorney were not immediately successful.

Police did not have information about why Crump lost custody of the girl. They said that the mother has a family court warrant, but could not provide further details.

“We are deeply concerned about the safety of the two children in Queens," said Jose Bayona, a spokesman for the city's embattled Administration for Children's Services, hours before the children were found.

The agency's Commissioner Gladys Carrion just stepped down following a scathing state report and two deaths of children on the agency's caseload.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the state agency responsible for sending Amber alerts.