Families
and victims advocates participate in a prayer walk around the Indian
Pueblo Cultural Center to mark Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons
Day in Albuquerque, N.M., on May 5, 2024. Susan Montoya Bryan | AP
The
FBI is sending extra agents, analysts and other personnel to field
offices in 10 states over the next six months to help investigate
unsolved violent crimes in Indian Country, marking a continuation of
efforts by the federal government to address high rates of violence
affecting Native American communities.
The U.S. Justice Department
announced Tuesday that the temporary duty assignments began immediately
and will rotate every 90 days in field offices that include
Albuquerque, Phoenix, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City,
Seattle, Salt Lake City, Portland, Oregon, and Jackson, Mississippi.
PODCAST: https://war-podcast.com/Maggie Jackson, Sheyahshe Littledave, and Ahli-sha "Osh" Stephens, enrolled members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and of hosts of “We Are Resilient: A MMIW True Crime Podcast,” bringing awareness to Missing and Murdered and Indigenous Women is a year-round effort. Here, they share with MCI how they’re using their voices to bring the stories of Selena Not Afraid, Brittaney Littledave, Ashlea Aldrich, and others to their community and beyond.
Navajo
Nation council speaker Crystalyne Curley and Billy Kirkland shake hands
with guests at the Navajo Nation Washington Office. Kirkland was
honored at the office during a reception in January. (Photo: Antonia
Gonzales)
A Navajo Nation citizen has been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs.
The nomination of William “Billy” Kirkland was sent to the U.S. Senate on Monday, according to the Congressional database.
The Navajo Times reports Kirkland is a political strategist from
Georgia who’s worked in the state’s political landscape. He also served
in various positions during the first Trump administration.
Kirkland is said to have played a role working with tribes on the
issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women helping with the Trump
administration’s response through Operation Lady Justice.
He was honored during a reception at the Navajo Nation Washington
Office in January on the night before President Trump took office.
Navajo
Nation council speaker Crystalyne Curley and Billy Kirkland shake hands
with a guest at the Navajo Nation Washington Office. Kirkland was
honored at the office during a reception in January. (Photo: Antonia
Gonzales)
Kirkland gave brief remarks at the reception, in an audio recording provided by Indianz.com.
“Anytime we can get Indian Country more involved in anything we’re
doing, whether it’s here in Washington or in the states or policy wise
or the inaugural ceremonies taking place tomorrow, the inauguration
ball, we definitely want to do so. The White House will continue to have
an open-door policy with all the tribal nations.”
If confirmed, Kirkland will replace Bryan Newland (citizen of the Bay
Mills Indian Community), who resigned at the end of the Biden
administration.
Lori Long Chase disappeared in 1983, and so did much of her life story.
Her body had been unknowingly found almost a month after she was last seen by family. But she remained nameless for decades and her homicide went unsolved.
Now after 41 years, Lori is able to reclaim her name, as the details of her life and death begin to unfold.
Lori was adopted out of the San Carlos Apache Reservation in about 1965 when she was only days old, her little sister, Memory Long Chase, says. Memory was also adopted 13 years later as a baby out of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. She’s now one of the last surviving people ever to know Lori.
This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two Spirit and Transgender People (MMIWG2T).
“I want to think that she knows I didn’t forget her,” says Memory, who was only 5 years old when Lori went missing. Most of what she knows is based on her childhood memory and bits of information she’s heard from their family over the years.
Lori Long Chase (Phoenix Police Department)
“Maybe I’ve invented some in my mind as I’m kind of piecing things together but I want to think that they’re real,” she says of her memories of her big sister Lori.
Lori was a distance swimmer, and a really good one, Memory says. She swam the 1500-meter butterfly and might’ve held a state record at one point. Memory remembers a detective with the Phoenix Police Department sharing a yearbook photo they found of Lori “in that Michael Phelps pose.”
One memory that stands out in Memory’s mind is the time Lori used the money she made from her first job to buy her a book about Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. “It was a really big book … it had all these artist drawings and storyboards. It was the coolest thing ever,” she says before becoming silent for a moment.
“It’s so unfair that those are the only memories I have of her,” Memory says, her voice quavering. “But they were pretty great, the ones I do have.”
Missing since 1983
On the first Saturday in October, about a dozen people attended a memorial service honoring Lori, even though most had never met her.
They gathered under a ramada outside the St. John the Baptist Parish on the Gila River Indian Community where a rosary and mass had just ended. Nearly everyone who showed up for Memory and Lori wore red — a color that’s come to symbolize the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s movement.
“I think one of the hardest parts about this was knowing that there’s so few alive that remember who she was and so I wanted to keep (Lori’s memory) alive because it mattered to me that she lived,” Memory says as everyone sat around a few folding tables to listen to her talk. “I’m sorry that her life was brief and I’m sorry it was difficult.”
Lori was just a few months shy of her 18th birthday when she went missing in Phoenix on about July 21, 1983. It was the same day she started a new job at a pizza restaurant, Memory and a spokesperson for the Phoenix Police Department told Arizona Luminaria. When her mom went to pick up Lori at the end of her shift, she was told her daughter had been fired because her boyfriend kept showing up and being disruptive.
That was the last time anyone in their family saw or heard from Lori, Memory says. At the memorial people around her quietly nibbled on slices of pizza, which Memory picked to signify the day Lori went missing.
Candles bearing the words "We love you" and "Gone too soon" at Lori Long Chase's memorial service at the St. John the Baptist Parish on the Gila River Indian Community on Oct. 5, 2024.
Until recently, most of what was known publicly about Lori was written across a missing person flyer from the Phoenix Police Department. At its center is a cropped photo of Lori that Memory says was taken outside her family’s new home on the Gila River Indian Community weeks, maybe even days, before her disappearance.
The uncropped version of the photo shows Lori sitting against the hood of a Triumph Spitfire and staring directly at the camera. Her brown hair is fluffed and feathered, like many teens her age styled it in the 1980s.
And while her smile illuminates through the old photo’s fading color, it’d likely been a tough time for Lori. Several months earlier she lost her baby boy shortly after he was born.
Reclaiming her name
Lori’s disappearance would go unsolved for the next four decades, though she wasn’t officially reported missing to the Phoenix Police Department until 2021. Memory says she doesn’t know if their mom, who died in 2016, ever tried to report Lori missing before then.
“My mom wouldn’t want to talk about it,” Memory says.
Four years ago, Memory contacted detectives because she believed an unidentified girl listed on the police department’s website could be Lori. The girl — known at the time only as Ahwatukee Jane Doe — was believed to be affiliated with the San Carlos Apache Tribe and had been found dead nearly a month after Lori disappeared.
“The first composite drawing has really tightly curly hair. I didn’t remember Lori having curly hair. But, page 2, that composite drawing is almost identical to that last picture that we have of her,” Memory says.
Because Memory wasn’t biologically related to Lori she couldn’t undergo DNA tests to help confirm the girl’s identity. Ahwatukee Jane Doe remained unnamed. Lori remained missing.
In May 2022, the department released a video with photos of Lori and a plea on National Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s Awareness Day. They described a young woman found on the banks of a canal in Ahwatukee and asked for information to help locate potential biological relatives of Lori for DNA testing.
"Last year, a family came forward saying this might be their adopted sister, Lori Megan Long Chase, who went missing around the same time period in the early 80s," said Ryan Cody, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department. "Now, almost 40 years later, we are asking the public for their help again to identify this Jane Doe."
No one has yet come forward.
The department decided to find the burial place for Lori’s infant son, Bronson Hawk Long Chase. With help from the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner, Lori’s baby and her only known blood relative was exhumed for DNA testing.
More than a year passed as Memory waited. And on Sept. 5 her phone rang. The DNA testing had confirmed Ahwatukee Jane Doe was indeed Lori, closing the chapter on her missing person case but opening another into her death.
“This leg of the journey is over, but Part 2 begins,” Memory says. “It’s so surreal because her being missing has been a fact in my existence for most of my existence so now it’s like I don’t even know what to do with myself.”
“It took 41 years for science to give Lori her name back and so I think we have every reason to hope that science will give her justice,” she later added.
Heurich, who helped launch the program in the early 2000s, described NamUs as “a one-stop-shop tool” that helps law enforcement, medical examiners, coroners, and the general public track missing, unidentified and unclaimed persons cases. The program can also help resolve cases by offering resources such as investigative support, training and outreach and forensic sciences similar to what investigators used to identify Lori.
Heurich has worked on hundreds of cases over the past two decades. Finding resolution in missing and unidentified person cases, he said, can bring about feelings of immense gratitude for the family and investigators involved.
Even in instances when a missing person is later discovered to have been a victim of a violent crime, he said, families may be comforted in the fact that they’re closer to justice and can lay their loved one to rest.
“It's undescribable when you have a family member come up and hug you … and they cry on your shoulder,” Heurich said. “I've cried with a lot of family members whose cases have been solved and whose cases have been unsolved and it's probably one of the most impactful experiences I have had through my career.”
NamUs is a voluntary program, meaning there is no federal law requiring agencies to enter cases into the database, he said. Sixteen states including Arizona have legislation mandating the use of NamUs for either missing and/or unidentified person cases, according to the program’s website. However, none of those state statutes include an enforcement component making it difficult to ensure agencies are complying with the law, Heurich said.
In Arizona, law enforcement agencies are required to submit information about a missing, kidnapped or runaway child to NamUs, among others, within two hours of receiving a report. No other Arizona laws specifically mention NamUs and it is not clear if any Tribal Nations in Arizona have laws related to NamUs.
“The numbers of cases in NamUs are vastly different from the numbers of cases we’re hearing out in the United States,” Heurich said, adding that the missing people in its system only represent cases reported to the program.
In order for a case to be published in the database, there has to be an active missing person report created by a law enforcement agency, he said. As part of the services the program provides, NamUS staff can work with law enforcement to create a report for a missing person at the request of families.
“We do understand there is a very large issue out there not just in the tribal communities but in the law enforcement community, in general, with actually taking missing persons reports, especially with people over the age of 18 who are considered adults,” he said.
“For lack of a better word, there’s a stigma out there that people who are over 18 are allowed to go missing for whatever reason they want to,” Heurich continued. “Sometimes those cases are taken less seriously until there is actual proof that that person is probably and most likely endangered.”
A T-shirt bearing the words "You are not forgotten" and "MMIW" at Lori Long Chase's memorial service at the St. John the Baptist Parish on the Gila River Indian Community on Oct. 5, 2024.
‘The database is only as good as the number of cases in it’
Closing gaps in state laws that would require and enforce reporting of missing people of all ages could help increase the number of successfully resolved cases. It’s especially important for Indigenous communities in Arizona, a state that was identified in a 2017 study from the Urban Indian Health Institute as having the third highest number of cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in the country.
Native Americans, particularly Native American women, rank the high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women among the most important issues facing their communities, according to the First Nations Development Institute’s 2023 National Native American Justice survey.
Indigenous families searching for their missing loved one, or seeking justice for their murdered loved one, often face systemic failures that contribute to gaps in data and reporting. Some families wait years and many never find justice or resolution.
There are 1,072 missing person cases in Arizona entered into NamUs, almost 9% (93) of which are identified on the database as Native Americans, an Arizona Luminaria review of the website on Oct. 30 showed. Yet, Native Americans make up just more than 5% of the state’s total population, according to 2023 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
NamUs could not immediately provide Arizona Luminaria with an example of an Indigenous person's case it helped to solve in Arizona.
“We still encounter a little bit of skepticism on the science and we're trying to help bridge the mistrust with collecting DNA samples from family,” Heurich said, adding that in some Indigenous communities taking someone’s DNA can be considered taking part of their spiritual being.
“We want to convey to the communities that taking (a DNA sample) may be the only way that we can identify or find their person.”
In comparison to state and local law enforcement agencies, Heurich said there is a general lack of reporting of missing person cases to NamUs by tribal police, which he attributed to a lack of resources, trust and training. That’s why outreach and education — not only about the possible benefits of forensic sciences, but also the existence of NamUs as a resource — is a goal for the program, he said.
“We're always looking at ways to do better outreach. To let, not only families and everyone in the general public know about NamUs as a tool, but also police agencies,” he said.
“I think one of the biggest things that we could say out in the community of victims, survivors and law enforcement is: Use NamUs because the database is only as good as the number of cases in it.”
Memory Long Chase speaks to guests attending her sister Lori Long Chase's memorial service at the St. John the Baptist Parish on the Gila River Indian Community on Oct. 5, 2024.
Part 2 for Memory
Memory passed out remembrance cards with a photo of Lori wearing a hospital gown and mask while holding her baby boy in her arms. The cards also showed the photo of Lori taken outside their family’s new home at the time on the Gila River Indian Community. The same photo police used on Lori’s missing person’s flyer.
“There are not enough words to express our grief at the loss of Lori, but forever grateful she is no longer lost,” the card reads near the bottom. “Rest in Power after 41 years.”
Lori Long Chase (Phoenix Police Department)
Beyond a short explanation about Lori’s body being found in 1983, Phoenix police did not share any details with the public or Arizona Luminaria about its investigation into her death. At one point in 2018, the department tried to determine if she was Peggy Elgo, a 20-year-old San Carlos Apache woman who also went missing in 1983. The following year another unidentified person found in Pinal County was confirmed to be Peggy.
The Phoenix Police Department did not respond to multiple requests dating back to July for an interview about Lori’s case, and on Sept. 10 ultimately denied an interview saying a detective new to the case was still reviewing it.
The department instead offered to share questions with the detective. Phoenix police spokesperson Sgt. Brian Bower provided an emailed response to those questions to Arizona Luminaria on Sept. 17. Bower has not responded to follow-up questions emailed multiple times.
A public records request with the agency is also still pending.
Lori’s death was determined to be a homicide. Her body was found on Aug. 15, 1983, along a canal in the 4300 block of East Williams Field Road, according to an Arizona Republic news brief Phoenix police shared in their 2022 plea for help solving the case. It was described as a rural farming area south of Ahwatukee and within a mile of the Gila River Indian Community, where Lori’s family had just moved and Memory was raised.
Phoenix police at the time said she appeared to have been killed somewhere else before being moved to the area where she was found and possibly laid alone for days, according to the news brief.
“I was kind of wanting to focus on her life more than her death but … I think highlighting her death is equally important because she died horribly,” Memory says. “I think her official cause of death is strangulation, she was found nude, beaten and bloody in a canal where she laid for a couple of days in August.”
During the memorial service, Memory says Lori’s boyfriend is an alleged suspect in her homicide case. Responding to Arizona Luminaria’s inquiry about suspects, a Phoenix police department spokesperson said they would look into the case.
Memory also told the group that Phoenix police learned Lori had been hospitalized between the time her family last saw her and when her body was found. “Her boyfriend beat her severely enough to put her in the hospital for several days,” Memory says. “That was the last time anybody saw her alive.”
Memory Long Chase wipes away her tears during her sister Lori Long Chase's memorial service at the St. John the Baptist Parish on the Gila River Indian Community on Oct. 5, 2024.
‘She was meant to be here for a reason’
After sharing Lori’s story with the group, Memory thanked everyone for attending her sister’s memorial. “It’s an orphan’s lot to go through things by yourself,” she says. “Thank you for being here and helping me celebrate the fact that she lived because she mattered.”
Then, Memory fell silent. In the quiet, the low rumble of cars passing by on the nearby main road sounded like a roar. She cupped her face with her hands, propped her head over the table and began to cry.
“She didn’t deserve that,” Memory muffles into her hands.
Her cries hung in the air for a moment while everyone else sat in silence. Many of the guests were women working to end domestic violence. They were there to support Memory, but also to pay respects to a girl who may have fallen victim to domestic violence — the very people they aim to help.
“I had that last bit of hope that she’s off living her life somewhere,” Memory later says. “But once I saw that drawing it was over for me, I think I kind of knew without knowing.”
“I don't think it was any coincidence that I do the work that I do and it reaffirms that this is where I’m supposed to be,” she continued. “It’s heartbreaking but I love it … I believe in what we do and I believe in who we do it for.”
Memory’s journey into advocacy began in 2014 when she worked at the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence. Now, she serves as the Domestic Violence Response Director at SWIWC, formerly known as the Southwest Indigenous Women’s Coalition.
The organization helps Tribal Nations in Arizona address and respond to domestic and sexual violence in their communities through education, training, policy advocacy and more, according to its website. They also helped organize the first Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls event at the Arizona State Capitol in May 2019.
For her work, Memory was awarded a “Courage in Action” Distinguished Service Award from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes in 2023. The award recognizes a crime victim or survivor who creates “positive systemic change on behalf of other victims,” according to a brief from the attorney general’s website.
“Working with Indigenous communities and drawing on personal experience of being a victim herself, has given her a unique perspective on how to address and respond to all forms of violence, as well as how to educate community members on the dynamics within Native communities,” the brief states about Memory alongside a photo of her and Mayes.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It’s also Lori’s birthday month.
She would have turned 59 on Oct. 11. Rather than celebrating together, Memory is instead planning where to lay her sister and nephew to rest. She launched a GoFundMe campaign days after Lori was identified to help cover cremation costs. It had raised $3,150 of its $3,500 goal as of Oct. 30.
Memory says she might return Lori with her son to the San Carlos Apache Reservation, where she originally was from.
“She was meant to be here for a reason and maybe this was it, maybe her case helps advance science for the next family and maybe the detectives who worked her case can be a model on how investigations can go,” Memory says.
“I refuse to let it be without purpose and I’ll continue to share her story until I die.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story had an incorrect date for when Phoenix police responded to emailed questions. A spokesperson responded to Arizona Luminaria on Sept. 17.
This article first appeared on AZ Luminaria and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
By Merrina O’Malley, Special to ICT
Minnesota state senator fights for the rights of missing and murdered Indigenous people by educating the public ... continue reading
Native American Representation in film from 2007-2022 An analysis of the 1,600 top-grossing movies released from 2007-2022 found: 0.25 percent of all speaking characters were Native American 1 percent of films featured female Native American characters with speaking roles 77 percent of Native characters were male and 23 percent were female Data from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.
Rustic Oracle is the equally heart-wrenching and heartwarming MMIWG drama every Canadian needs to see | Sonia Boileau's moving film follows a mother and daughter coping with grief and reparing their relationship
Lake Delisle as Ivy (left) and McKenzie Deer Robinson as Heather in Rustic Oracle. (Nish Media)
This is part of a series of essays in response to our recent project CBC Arts Presents: The 50 Greatest Films Directed by Canadians.
We asked writers to choose a Canadian-directed film that they believe
should have been included — particularly ones that fill the
representational gaps in Canada's film history — and tell us why it
deserves to be there.
There has been an incredible boom of Indigenous filmmaking in Canada in the last decade; three of the fiveIndigenousfilms onCBC'slist The 50 Greatest Films Directed by Canadians were debut feature films that were made in the last decade. (Jeff Barnaby's Rhymes for Young Ghouls
would even make my list of the best films in the history of cinema.)
But many of the films that have come out of this boom have struggled to
find the audience they deserve, often for lack of a marketing budget.
And there's no greater example of this than Sonia Bonspille Boileau's Rustic Oracle, an exemplary, heart-wrenching and heartwarming film that needs to be seen by every Canadian.
Rustic Oracle
is the best fiction feature film I've seen that addresses the national
tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG). It's
also a touching, sensitive story of a grieving family — a young Mohawk
girl losing her innocence as she discovers the cruelty of the adult and
settler world, and an estranged mother and daughter finding their way
back to each other.
Set in the late 1990s, the film
follows eight-year-old Ivy (Lake Delisle) and her mother Susan (Carmen
Moore) as they head on a road trip in search of Ivy's 18-year-old sister
Heather (McKenzie Deer Robinson), who disappeared without a trace. When
the settler police service meets Susan with openly racist comments and
indifference about solving the case, she has no choice but to look for
her daughter herself, with Ivy in tow.
The
film is told from Ivy's perspective as an adult (played by the great
Devery Jacobs) looking back at her childhood and piecing together the
meaning of her memories. As a child, Ivy is never fully privy to
everything that's happening. As a child, she also doesn't understand
everything she actually does see and hear. Important conversations are
always happening in another room, usually when adults think she isn't
listening — even though she often is.
Carmen Moore as Susan holding Lake Delisle as Ivy in Rustic Oracle. (Nish Media)
In
an early scene in the film, we watch Ivy tiptoe out of her bedroom at
night, having awoken to the sounds of adult voices in the kitchen: her
mother's and a police officer's. She tentatively moves through the
shadows to listen to what they're discussing in the harsh fluorescent
light of the kitchen. It's a perfect metaphor for what happens to Ivy in
the film: she leaves the safe spaces of childhood (her dark bedroom)
where she is physically and metaphorically protected from the harsh
realities of the adult world. And she does so when the adults aren't
watching; they can't stop her, and she doesn't really want them to
either.
Boileau is incredibly attentive to blocking and
framing; Ivy regularly crosses physical thresholds that also stand in
for metaphorical ones. Throughout the film, the camera is close to Ivy;
much of the time, Susan is at the back of the frame, as if unreachable,
in another world from Ivy.
Susan's
emotional distance is not for want of caring — it's because she cares
too much. She's doing everything she can to keep her fear and anxieties
about Heather's disappearance to herself. But it often means she's not
attentive to Ivy's emotional needs, becoming standoffish and short. The
film tracks the pair as they move closer and closer to one another in
the frame, partly thanks to the forced proximity of sharing a car and a
hotel room, which mirrors their slowly increasing emotional closeness.
Lake Delisle as Ivy (left) and Carmen Moore as Susan in Rustic Oracle. (Nish Media)
Although Rustic Oracle
deals with the aftermath of incredibly tragic and traumatic events, the
film itself remains hopeful. Boileau makes time for a scene at a cafe
where Ivy and Carmen play tic tac toe and end up in stitches, a reminder
of the deep love between mother and daughter. We meet the community of
women who support Ivy and Carmen on their journey, from Carmen's best
friend in Ottawa, who gives Ivy affection when Susan can't, to a woman
at the friendship centre in Montreal who aids their search.
And
there's the narrative that bookends the film: an adult Ivy telling this
story in voiceover for her daughter, also named Heather, who reminds
her of her sister daily, and to whom Ivy gives the warmth that we
watched Carmen learn to show.
Lake Delisle as Ivy in Rustic Oracle. (Nish Media)
Rustic Oracle
isn't strictly about the indifference of the settler world to
Indigenous trauma, but it's baked into the film's grammar and structure.
The road trip is only necessary because the police won't do their job.
The people who provide Ivy and Carmen with support tend to be Indigenous
people, not settlers, while Ivy's discovery of the cruel adult world
coincides with a road trip off the reserve and into settler spaces.
The
film is realistic about colonialism, but not confrontational, focusing
instead on asking settler audiences to empathize with the characters. We
feel their extremely justified frustrations with settler institutions
and racism — but mostly, we're invested in their relationships. And with
the final title card, the film encourages us to stay invested in the
stories of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — In a groundbreaking move, the American Indian Law Alliance (AILA) on AUGUST 22 2023, announced its partnership with the National Institute for Law and Justice (NILJ) to intensify efforts in solving cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR).
Since its inception in 1989, AILA has championed the causes of
Indigenous nations, communities, and organizations, tirelessly
advocating for sovereignty, human rights, and social justice. Their
profound expertise in these realms will synergize with the capabilities
of NILJ, which was established in 2021.
NILJ’s primary mission is to provide investigative support—at no
cost—for victims and their families, enabling them to present their
individual cases for expert review by decorated retired NYPD homicide
detectives and a network of forensic and investigation specialists. This
includes current and cold MMIR cases, ensuring justice and closure are
achievable for all, irrespective of financial barriers.
“What sets NILJ apart from other organizations is that they are
committed and are passionate about doing the work of bringing our
relatives home and investigating these cases,” said Gaeñ hia uh, Betty
Lyons (Onondaga Nation, Snipe Clan), Executive Director of American Indian Law Alliance. “In their retirement, these dedicated men are choosing to bring some sense of closure to these mourning families.”
Detective Mark Pucci, Founder and CEO of NILJ added, “This
partnership with AILA is pivotal in our dedication to reach and help
Indigenous families who otherwise might not know about our
organization.”
Together, NILJ and AILA will address the MMIR crisis and bring
resolution to families whose loved ones are missing and/or murdered.
Their efforts will spotlight the struggles of Indigenous communities and
advocate for legislative and policy changes at the national level.
The organizations invite public engagement, urging policymakers,
stakeholders, and the community at large to rally behind this crucial
mission.
To submit a case for review, family members whose loved ones are missing or have been murdered are encouraged to visit https://nilj.org/contact-us or call 1-833-FIND-ME.
AILA and NILJ are passionate about working together to help support
the families of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, 2Spirit
folks, and all Indigenous Relations coming home.
“The Two Row Wampum belt treaty reminds us that we are traveling down
this river of life side-by-side with one another,” added Betty Lyons.
“Let’s work together to reunite families.”
About AILA: The American
Indian Law Alliance (AILA), established in 1989, as an Indigenous,
non-profit, non-partisan organization. AILA collaborates with Indigenous
nations, communities, and organizations to advocate for sovereignty,
human rights, and social justice, steadfastly championing the rights and
needs of Indigenous peoples throughout Turtle Island. For more
information, visit https://aila.ngo/.
About NILJ: Founded in 2022, the National
Institute for Law and Justice (NILJ) offers victims, their families, and
loved ones the opportunity to present their missing persons and
homicide cases—at no cost—for expert review, bridging financial gaps and
ensuring professional investigations. The nonprofit organization is
committed to unveiling the truth, serving justice, and providing closure
to all affected parties. For more information, visit https://nilj.org.
National Day Of Awareness For Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women (& Girls) #MMIWG Guest Commentary
Published May 5, 2019
“I stand before you today, a full-blooded Native American woman, a Northern Arapaho/Hunkpapa Lakota. The statistics that hang over my head are these: I am among the most stalked, raped, murdered, sexually assaulted, and abused of any women in any ethnic group, and I am among those who suffer domestic violence 50 times higher than the national average.”
I use that statement to open my presentations on the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women (MMIW) crisis. I travel around Indian Country, as I have for years, to raise awareness and inform our people of the scale of the tragedy and, crucially, how to make a safer environment for their communities and families. I have done this work for over a decade, and when I committed to it the term “MMIW” had not been coined.
I am somebody who works with data, but Chairman Gerald Grey of the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council (RMTLC) recently made a statement that should resonate with us all, that speaks to more than numbers: “I choose not to quote statistics because our women and girls are human beings not statistics. This is mom. Auntie. Sister. Niece. Daughter. Cousin. And sometimes, grandma. We know the names of some of the victims, but study after study shows that MMIWG cases are underreported, so there are many, many names we do not and may never know.”
This is personal. When we learn of another victim near or far, in our reservations communities we can relate on a deep, emotional level. We may not know the victim or their family, but we know the socio-economic conditions; we know the struggle. READ MORE
Visit: www.mmiw-gic.com Lynette Grey Bull is Senior Vice President of Global Indigenous
Council and the founder of Not Our Native Daughters. In 2017, Lynette
provided statistics and research on missing and exploited Native women
and children for the UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples. She
previously served as Chair of the Arizona Commission of Indian Affairs
at the Governor’s office, and on the Arizona Governor’s Human
Trafficking Task Force.
