a day ago
HUNTER: Scolding, posturing has not solved one MMIWG cold case
We all remember the scoldings.
Daily, we were told that the crisis of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) was our fault. In some ways, it was true, but in most ways, it wasn't.
So we launched a commission that cost a zillion dollars and had a pre-determined outcome.
Reality, however, scorched the commission's narrative and that of Justin Trudeau's Liberal government.
Now, six years after the final report was released in 2019, with a so-called action plan, Red Dress Days and myriad other faculty lounge-inspired endeavours, MMIWG remains a national crisis.
Little has been done except for the go-to vibes.
'Many of these murders of women and children could be easily solved, but it's like the government has an aversion to doing anything,' one homicide detective told me. 'They don't seem to want to bring closure, justice and relief to the families and communities affected.'
Easier to scold and virtue signal than to do anything constructive.
South of the border, it's a different story. It's a commitment and a promise.
On Thursday, Washington state's newly minted Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Cold Case Unit announced they arrested an Arkansas woman in a nine-year-old cold case.
While the victim was an Indigenous man, the result was an arrest and a charge of second-degree murder.
According to The Olympian, George David, 65, was a respected master woodcarver and a resident of the Port Angeles area. He was found murdered on March 28, 2016.
David had just returned from visiting family and attending a funeral in British Columbia.
Tina Alcorn appeared in Clallam County Superior Court on Tuesday. She remains in custody, held on $1 million bail.
Cops say Alcorn was on their radar as a primary suspect early in the investigation but fell through the cracks until last month.
'This case has never been forgotten,' Port Angeles Police Chief Brian S. Smith said. 'The renewed investigation, bolstered by our partnership with the MMIWP Task Force, reflects our commitment to justice and to honouring George David's memory.'
It's startling when you consider the hundreds of faces of missing and murdered Indigenous women in this country. Seemingly forgotten, except for the wails of anguish from their heartbroken families.
Instead of arrests and answers in Canada, victims' families are left with tiresome platitudes and a numbing limbo. A small coterie of loudmouths and their bureaucratic enablers leave survivors high and dry.
In the U.S., detectives with the new MMIWP are making arrests.
More than 40 years after 18-year-old Terri McCauley was murdered in Iowa, investigators made an arrest there. McCauley was a member of the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska.
'She could have been a successful person, a Native female, who could have made a big difference in this community. And unfortunately, that was taken from her,' family spokesman Joshua Taylor said.
McCauley vanished after a night out with friends in the fall of 1983. She was last seen getting into a vehicle outside a Sioux City watering hole. Her body was discovered days later in a wooded area miles away.
She had been shot to death. More lost promise.
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Thomas Duane Popp has been charged with first-degree murder.
'I want to commend our cold case team for their work on behalf of victims and families,' Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said.
'This is a milestone on a long path toward accountability. The Legislature funded this work because so many people would not give up the pursuit of justice for their loved ones.'
And in Canada? MMIWG families are like those stranded in Casablanca in the classic Humphrey Bogart movie of the same name.
They wait, and wait, and wait.
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@HunterTOSun
