‘We've waited too long': Bill to create an Indigenous missing persons alert wins bipartisan backing
Yolanda Bydonie remembers how difficult and frustrating it was to not only file a missing person report for her cousin but also to spread the word about her disappearance.
'We weren't taken seriously,' she said.
Her cousin, Keisha Kootswatewa, is Hopi and a mother of three children. She went missing on March 26, 2022, in Teesto, a small community on the Navajo Nation.
The family is still searching for her.
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When the family tried to report Kootswatewa missing to the Hopi Police Department, Bydonie said they were met with resistance because she went missing on the Navajo Nation. Their local police referred them to the Navajo Nation Police Department.
But the family was quickly sent back to the Hopi Police Department after the Navajo Nation Police Department told her that, since Kootswatewa is Hopi, they should report her missing there.
'It was a back and forth thing for us,' Bydonie said, and the Hopi Police Department eventually took the report after the family persisted. By then, Kootswatewa had been missing for about four weeks, and the family had no significant leads for an investigation.
'We lost time,' Bydonie said.
Years later, she said she still feels they don't have any help from their tribal police department.
Because of that experience, Bydonie said she believes the effort to establish an alert system for missing Indigenous people is a great idea.
'It would help a lot of Indigenous people,' she said. 'They don't have to be forgotten.'
Bydonie said that an alert system will help families notify the public on a larger scale about their missing loved ones more quickly instead of struggling to get agencies to recognize that a family member is missing.
'We've gone through a lot as a family trying to find her,' Bydonie said. The family has organized search parties and shared Kootswatewa's story in multiple ways to get it out to the public.
A bill that has already passed through the Arizona House of Representatives with unanimous support would create the Missing Indigenous or Endangered Person Alert System, which would issue and coordinate alerts for missing Indigenous or endangered persons. It would also specify the qualifying conditions for activating alerts through the federally authorized Emergency Alert System.
The alert system would function similarly to the Amber Alert and Silver Alert notification systems operated by the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
Rep. Teresa Martinez, R-Casa Grande, sponsored House Bill 2281, which passed through the Arizona Senate Committee on Public Safety earlier this month, also with unanimous support. Next, it will head to the full Senate for consideration.
During the March 12 committee meeting, Martinez said the Amber and Silver Alerts are excellent systems, but emphasized the need for another alert to address the gap in alerting the public to disappearances of people aged 18 to 55.
To draw attention to the point, Martinez shared the story of Emily Pike, a 14-year-old San Carlos Apache girl who went missing at the end of January. Her body was found on Valentine's Day.
When Emily went missing, Martinez said, no Amber Alert was issued for various reasons, 'but the reality is that this little girl was missing for over a month and they found her dismembered.'
Martinez said she is open to renaming the alert after Emily Pike.
The bill would require DPS to establish the Alert System, a quick response system designed to issue and coordinate alerts following the report of a missing Indigenous or endangered person.
The alert would only be issued at the request of an authorized law enforcement agency investigating a report of a missing person, and DPS would approve and issue the alert.
For an alert to be issued, the missing person must be an Indigenous or non-Indigenous endangered person who is at least 18 years old.
Martinez's bill includes various stipulations, including that the investigating law enforcement agency must have utilized all available local resources. Law enforcement must also confirm that the person has gone missing under unexplained or suspicious circumstances and believe that the person is in danger, potentially in the company of a dangerous person, or other factors indicating that the person may be in peril.
During the committee meeting, Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said that when he initially testified in support of the bill in early February, Emily Pike had been missing for weeks before being found near Globe. No Amber Alert was issued for her.
'I can't help but think, what if this law was in place early? Would Emily be alive today?' he said. 'We must act.'
Lewis said tribal nations in Arizona are working to address the ongoing missing and murdered Indigenous peoples crisis, but they can't do it alone.
'We need your help,' he said to the committee.
Lewis said that the Gila River Indian Community's victim services department has a high degree of success in recovering missing or endangered tribal members using early notifications throughout the reservation. However, that all changes once they leave the reservation.
As a tribal government, Lewis said their best chance for recovering endangered or missing tribal members off the reservation begins with a coordinated, multi-jurisdictional effort involving tribal police, local and state police and the general public.
Lewis said the alert would not be aimed at favoring Indigenous people over others, but rather to help all missing and endangered youths, adults and elderly people be safely recovered.
'It is so important to get something started,' Lewis said. 'We've waited too long.'
The Arizona Department of Public Safety only uses two alert systems for missing people in Arizona.
An Amber Alert is activated when a minor is abducted, and a Silver Alert is activated when a person over the age of 65 or who has a cognitive or developmental disability goes missing.
If a person who is 18 or older goes missing in Arizona, a public alert of their disappearance is not available nor required. That's a hurdle that many Indigenous families are familiar with.
More than 10,600 Indigenous people were reported missing in the U.S. in 2023, roughly 3,300 of whom were 18 or older, according to the FBI.
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System reported that more than 23,700 missing persons cases were in the database at the end of 2023, and 255 of those were for Indigenous people.
In 2021, Arizona was ranked as the state with the third-largest number of unresolved missing Indigenous people cases in the country, according to NamUs. There are currently 91 missing Indigenous people cases in the NamUs database for Arizona.
A study from the Urban Indian Health Institute found that Arizona also has the third-largest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in the country.
That study reported 506 known cases in 71 urban areas across the country, 54 of which were in Arizona, including 31 in Tucson.
There is still no single database that provides accurate numbers or data related to missing and murdered Indigenous peoples across the country. With no centralized database among the thousands of federal, state and tribal entities, the information available is limited.
When looking at the numbers, it's important to note that Indigenous people make up only about 6% of the population in Arizona. There are only three major metropolitan areas in the state that have large Indigenous populations, and each of the 22 tribal nations in Arizona has a large number of people living on the reservation.
Valaura Imus-Nahsonhoya serves as the coordinator for Arizona's Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Task Force and she has over a decade of experience working directly with families of MMIP.
She has helped families look for their missing family members, advocated on their behalf and raised awareness about the ongoing MMIP crisis. In her work, Imus-Nahsonhoya said she has experienced firsthand the lack of response from law enforcement when reporting a missing adult. Law enforcement has told her, 'They're an adult. It's not a crime.'
'The biggest thing is that we're not believed that we have a loved one that's missing, especially those 18 and over,' she said.
Through this proposed alert system, Imus-Nahsonhoya said there is the potential to fill the gap in reporting missing people over 18 and get a response.
'I'm hoping this will heighten the response of law enforcement,' she said.
Imus-Nahsonhoya said the experience and frustration Bydonie felt when trying to report her cousin missing is similar to many across Indian Country.
'Many families just didn't have the help,' she said, and it is often left up to community efforts to help families search for their missing loved ones.
Most of the cases Imus-Nahsonhoya said she has worked on have the same beginning story: lack of response from law enforcement and frustration when attempting to report a missing family member.
'Which is why this alert is really critical,' she said because it required the law enforcement agencies to take a missing persons report.
Through this alert system, Imus-Nahsonhoya said she hopes it will balance the efforts between the community and law enforcement agencies.
'This bill is going to bring it together,' she added.
For years, Indigenous people working within their communities have heard stories about the lack of response or urgency from police officials when a family wants to report their loved one missing.
Advocates have been calling for an alert system specifically for Indigenous people since as early as 2019, when the first MMIW study committee was established in the state.
April Ignacio sat in the audience as the Senate Public Safety Committee voted on HB2281 on March 12. She drove over three hours from the Tohono O'odham Nation in southern Arizona to attend the meeting, barely making it in time to hear discussion about the bill.
'We have been pushing this for six years,' Ignacio said of the alert system, adding that seeing the representatives bring it through the legislature is a 'full-circle moment.'
Ignacio is the co-founder of Indivisible Tohono. She has advocated for MMIP for years, serving on the first study committee in Arizona and is currently on the governor's MMIP task force. Her MMIP work started in her own community.
Seeing the alert system bill progress through the Arizona Legislature is an emotional experience for Ignacio because she thinks of all the Indigenous women, survivors and families who have fought for change.
'We don't really have this idea of what justice looks like,' Ignacio said, and the work Indigenous people have been doing for MMIP is finally being seen.
'We've been planting these seeds, and for our representatives to be able to get this passed is really important,' she said. 'All of this was made possible by having tribal representation.'
As a grassroots organizer, Ignacio said that it has been powerful to witness the efforts of Indigenous communities come to fruition.
'It took so much work,' she said, but they continue advocating for state law changes.
'The state is listening. Our leaders are listening,' Ignacio said, adding that it is crucial for tribes to maintain relationships with state representatives.
Elayne Gregg sat in the audience with Ignacio on March 12 and was happy to see the legislation pass through the committee.
Gregg is Tohono O'odham, Akimel O'odham and Inupiaq. She said the alert system will give Indigenous people a sense that their lives matter.
'That means a lot to me,' she said. 'That means a lot because these are our people and this holds a certain amount of healing and accountability from our state.'
Gregg has been an advocate for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People's movement for years because, like most advocates, it happened to her.
Gregg's daughter Rhia Danae Almeida was 7 years old when she was abducted and killed in Ajo in June 2009. She said her daughter was found quickly, but she knows that is not always the case for many Indigenous families.
'I continuously hear from a lot of families that they have not found their missing family members,' she said, adding that an alert system is important.
She has shared her daughter's story countless times to raise awareness about MMIW, and she believes that change is finally starting to happen because Indigenous people continue to share their stories.
'Indigenous people go missing at a higher rate than any other ethnicity,' she said. 'Because that rate is so high, something like this needs to happen.'
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