Latest news with #OperationNotForgotten
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
FBI offers $5,000 reward for information on Montana teen missing for 8 months
GARRYOWEN, Montana () — The FBI Salt Lake City Field Office is now offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of a missing 13-year-old from Montana. A new tipline phone number has been established solely for her case: 801-579-6195. Sa'Wade Birdinground was last seen at her family's residence in Garryowen, Montana, on October 6, 2024. She is 13 years old, roughly 5'4″ to 5'5″ tall, 130-140 pounds, and has brown eyes and curly brown hair. According to the FBI, Birdinground was last seen wearing a black hoodie with mushrooms on it, an anime t-shirt, basketball shorts, and purple slip-on Skechers. She may have been wearing a black and purple Adidas backpack and an elk tooth necklace. Utah`s next earthquake could hit harder, U of U research suggests In a press conference today, Special Agent in Charge Mehtab Syed from the FBI's Salt Lake City Field Office held a press conference on the search for Birdinground. The SLC Field Office covers Montana, Utah, and Idaho. 'Eight months ago today, on October 6, 2024, Sa'Wade disappeared from her family home in Garryowen. This was the last time those of you who know and love Sa'Wade saw her,' Syed stated. 'Eight months is an incomprehensible amount of time for any family to be without their child.' Syed reiterated the FBI's commitment to finding Birdinground. He said that they are working closely with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Crow Tribe Executive Branch, the Tribe's Search and Rescue, and the Big Horn County Sheriff's Office to bring the 13-year-old home. According to Syed, the FBI and local law enforcement have 'conducted dozens of interviews, searched hundreds of acres of land, and brought every technical resource to bear.' He said that the FBI is 'fully committed' to this investigation and bringing Birdinground home. St. George to crack down on off-highway vehicles after fatal crash kills 9-year-old boy 'I've never met Sa'Wade, but I've learned a lot about what kind of teen she is,' he said. 'Quiet with strangers but outgoing with family and friends, kind, artistic … She is well-liked by her friends and teachers, many of whom talked about her sense of humor and how Sa'Wade makes them laugh … Sa'Wade enjoyed spending time with her siblings, and they miss her dearly.' This year, the FBI has 'doubled the number of special agents' who are working Indian Country cases in the Billings Resident Agency. These agents will assist with Birdinground's case and other investigations in the area. This effort is part of the FBI's Operation Not Forgotten, which launched in 2023. 'We want our Native American communities to know, you are not forgotten. We hear you; you matter. Sa'Wade is not forgotten, she matters, and we are doing everything in our power to bring her home,' Syed stated. Anyone with information on Birdinground's disappearance should contact the tip line established for her case, 801-579-6195, or their local FBI field office. Ram kills the $40K truck, brings back the HEMI Assassin dancers, existential nuns, and comedy that cuts deep Two inmates charged for allegedly stabbing 'rival gang member' at Utah State Prison FBI offers $5,000 reward for information on Montana teen missing for 8 months Pride Festival: Here are the street closures happening in Salt Lake City Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Miami Herald
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
As Trump administration floods the zone to combat crime in Indian Country, wariness prevails
MORTON, Minn. – Sitting on a bench surrounded by Lower Sioux Community members, Ana Negrete presented two industrial-sized bins to the tribe's leaders in a somber exchange. "I hope this helps," Negrete said quietly, gesturing at black crates filled with items she wishes they'd never have to use: tools to help find missing Indigenous people. Negrete leads the state's Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) Office, a first-of-its-kind effort to address the disproportionately high rates of violent crime against Indigenous people. The kits delivered this month are part of a broader strategy involving tribal, local and state resources - and now, a promised surge in federal reinforcements. Last month, the Trump administration announced it would boost the FBI's "Operation Not Forgotten" with more agents to swarm Indian Country, including in Minnesota, in the "longest and most intense national deployment" of FBI investigators to date aimed at solving crimes against Indigenous people. In Minnesota, the pledge is prompting hope - but also deep skepticism. Some question whether the government will follow through on its promises; others wonder if the long-term solution has to come from within, given that many crimes involve victims and perpetrators from the same community. "It's a bit ironic actually. It's no secret that the Native American community in Minnesota is highly critical of President [Donald] Trump," said Irene Folstrom, a former Department of Public Safety tribal relations director who worked with the MMIR Office. FBI surge The latest phase of Operation Not Forgotten will see a boost of agents, totaling 60, the third deployment since the initiative began in 2023. Last year, there were closer to 50. "The additional resources from Operation Not Forgotten along with our continued partnership with local, state, federal, and tribal agencies will bolster the efforts of our dedicated personnel to bring cases closer to resolution," said Alvin Winston Sr., special agent in charge of Minneapolis' FBI office. The operation was created after the start of the federal government's Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, which Trump established in his first term through an executive order. Since its start, Operation Not Forgotten has helped with more than 500 cases resulting in 52 arrests and 25 charges, according to the Department of Justice. The FBI will partner with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal law enforcement agencies. Cases will be referred to U.S. Attorney's Offices for prosecution. Officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota said the operation supplements their efforts in recent years to prosecute crimes and "better serve" Indian Country, including opening an office in Duluth. An assistant U.S. attorney has been placed in the Duluth office and a victim witness specialist in Bemidji. "The U.S. Attorney's Office remains deeply committed to pursuing justice for our tribal communities," said acting U.S. Attorney Lisa Kirkpatrick. "We are grateful to the Department of Justice for their commitment to Operation Not Forgotten and its surge of much-needed FBI resources to our tribal lands." Agents have been stationed in Minneapolis and Bemidji for years as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Missing and Murdered Unit. Shawn Carr, an advocate in Duluth who's held annual news conferences for Sheila St. Clair since her disappearance in 2015, said missing persons cases in particular are a multifaceted issue. But the extra national resources "definitely helps," Carr said. However, for each case solved, or yet to be solved after years of searching, more missing person reports are filed. Kits to assist Beyond the influx of FBI agents, Negrete hopes the bins she's sent to tribes will supplement search efforts across the state. The kits are filled with a range of materials, from the practical (marking flags), to the technical (handheld GPS map) to the spiritual (sage). The office has now given out four kits to tribes across Minnesota, reserving one for the MMIR Office. The rate of missing and murdered Indigenous people remains elevated: While the community makes up 1% of Minnesota's population, it comprises nearly 9% of missing person cases. The MMIR Office reports having 20 active missing person and homicides cases. Last year, 10 people whose missing person cases were filed to the office were found. About 4% of people killed in Minnesota last year were Indigenous, the office's latest data show. This year, there's been more high-profile violence: A member of the Native gang is accused of shooting five Indigenous people, four fatally, earlier this month. Negrete said the need for the kits became apparent during a search for a 47-year-old man who went missing in November 2022 in the area of the Mille Lacs Reservation. The snow reached the waists of the search party. Sharp tree branches got in their way. "We just weren't prepared," Negrete recalled. The office provided its first kit to the Mille Lacs Band following the search. Each cost $13,000, totaling $65,000 for the five kits. To Negrete, the kits provide a tangible solution to a problem that can quickly become bogged down by bureaucracy and jurisdictional snafus. The MMIR Office has just four staffers, she said, making conducting searches across the state difficult. Negrete acknowledges the kits aren't a cure-all, but hopes they provide a balm to families whose only path forward is to scour the land for any clue. "Searching is a way for them to actively do something at a time when they feel powerless," Negrete said. A search within Some remain critical of state and federal efforts, saying they can be seen as performative instead of real boots-on-the-ground work. Those critics also say it's up to people, often within the Indigenous community, to stop withholding information on active cases. "It's time for people to start opening up and holding your own relatives accountable," said Lissa Yellow Bird-Chase, who founded in 2013 the Sahnish Scouts, a grassroots effort responding to disappearances of people in the Bakken oilfields of North Dakota where she lives. "As long as we keep blaming the white guys or the oil field people or whatever, then that makes an excuse for us not to look at ourselves," said Yellow Bird-Chase, 56, a member of the Arikara tribe. Her independent work brings her to place across the country helping Indigenous families find loved ones, including her own. She recently spent a week in Bemidji knocking on doors and tracking down information on Nevaeh Kingbird, who was 15 when she went missing in 2021, and Jeremy Jourdain, who was 17 when he disappeared in 2016. The Native teens went missing from the same neighborhood in Bemidji that Yellow Bird-Chase searched with her two golden retriever cadaver dogs. She's done this before over the years, along with searches on the Red Lake and White Earth reservations. But investigations stalled after the recent quadruple fatal shooting. She left Bemidji to help another family in South Dakota and allow time for Minnesota to mourn. "This might be the eye opener that people need," she said. Yellow Bird-Chase wants to see more searches instead of marches. Instead of gathering masses to protest and giving out signs to hold, she said groups of volunteers should be given neon vests and sent to knock on doors, areas to comb. Agencies tasked with solving cases are duplicating services, yet not producing results, Yellow-Bird Chase said. In 2021, the same year the state's MMIR Office began, BIA started a Missing and Murdered Unit (MMU). The unit has two agents in its Minneapolis field office and one agent in Bemidji. MMU has five active cases in Minnesota, including Kingbird and Jourdain. The MMIR Office is given $774,000 from the state, an increase from $500,000 at its inception. The office also generated $92,000 in revenue from the sale of nearly 3,500 special MMIR license places, money that will be steered into the reward fund once it launches. But Folstrom and Yellow Bird-Chase are critical of the MMIR Office still not having rewards for information from the public. Folstrom, who is enrolled in the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and considers Jourdain a relative, said it's unclear how the office is measuring outcomes of its work. "Show the intended beneficiaries what the results are," she said, "because we're out here looking around and not seeing any." Negrete countered that the search kits are just "one piece of the puzzle," and the root causes behind the missing and murdered Indigenous person epidemic "are complex and require a complex response." "The MMIR Office has a staff of four to serve the entire state and we do this work alone. The families cannot do it alone. Even law enforcement cannot do it alone," she said. Yellow Bird-Chase said Operation Not Forgotten has potential, but she's "not impressed until I'm impressed." Federal agents need to build rapport and trust in Native communities to counteract a historically fraught relationship. "We're in a Stockholm relationship with the government," she said. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Yahoo
12 dangerous criminals arrested, DOJ says
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — South Dakota's U.S. Attorney Department of Justice said Tuesday that an organized effort by law enforcement resulted in a large-scale arrest of 12 of the most violent offenders on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The arrests are an effort by the FBI, DEA, USMS, BIA, SD DCI, SD Highway Patrol, and the Oglala Sioux Tribe Department of Public Safety with assistance from the State of South Dakota in response to increased violent crime on the Pine Ridge Reservation including eight homicides since Sept. 1, information from the U.S. Department of Justice said. VIDEO: 1977 escapee dies in prison The individuals arrested are not low-level offenders – they represent a dangerous criminal element driving drug activity, intimidation, and deadly violence within the community, according to the DOJ. 'This coordinated operation represents a deliberate and strategic effort to dismantle violent criminal drug trafficking networks operating on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation,' Special Agent in Charge Alvin M. Winston Sr. of FBI Minneapolis, said in a statement. 'These arrests are the result of extensive investigative work targeting individuals responsible for driving drug-related violence. The level of violence affecting the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is unacceptable — and this operation is just the beginning. In the coming months, we will be participating in Operation Not Forgotten, a Department of Justice initiative focused on locating violent offenders and resolving long-standing cases. With this surge in resources, we will continue to work closely with our tribal, federal, state, and local partners to pursue justice and strengthen public safety.' On April 1, the DOJ announced that the FBI would send 60 personnel, rotating in 90-day temporary duty assignments over a six-month period in Indian Country. This operation is the longest and most intense national deployment of FBI resources to address Indian Country crime to date. At the beginning of Fiscal Year 2025, the FBI's Indian Country program had approximately 4,300 open investigations, including over 900 death investigations, 1,000 child abuse investigations, and more than 500 domestic violence and adult sexual abuse investigations, according to the April 1 news release. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Yahoo
Man who torched car with dead wife inside in the NC mountains sentenced to prison
A man who lit a car ablaze with his dead wife inside in the N.C. mountains was sentenced to life in prison Thursday, federal prosecutors in Charlotte said. Marie Walkingstick Pheasant was found in the burned-out car on Dec. 29, 2013, according to a news release by U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson's office. The car was parked near Big Cove Road in the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Investigators determined that the fire was intentionally set by Pheasant's estranged husband, Ernest Pheasant Sr., an enrolled EBCI member. An autopsy revealed that Marie Pheasant died of stab wounds to her neck and stomach, prosecutors said. Investigators linked DNA from a baseball cap near the car to Ernest Pheasant, according to the U.S. Attorney's office. On April 7, 2022, after reviewing unsolved homicides in the region, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit opened a full interagency investigation into the case, Ferguson's office said. Police determined that Pheasant killed his wife at their home and moved her body to the car. On Aug. 16, 2024, Pheasant pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for killing his wife 'willfully, deliberately, maliciously and with premeditation,' according to court documents. 'For over a decade, Marie's family has endured the pain of losing their loved one without justice,' Ferguson said in a statement. 'Today, that changed.' Pheasant, he said, 'will pay for his heinous crime by spending the rest of his life behind bars. While nothing can undo the family's loss, I hope this sentence brings them a measure of justice.' Ferguson said his office will pursue cases involving missing or murdered indigenous persons 'no matter how much time has passed.' Marcelino Toersbijns, chief of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit, said he hopes the sentence 'helps to provide closure to the family and friends of Marie Walkingstick Pheasant.' The unit began as the Cold Case Task Force, part of Operation Lady Justice, a multi-agency effort established by the Trump administration in 2019. The unit addresses 'the staggering number of missing and murdered American Indian and Alaska Natives in tribal communities,' according to the U.S. Attorney's office statement. Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced 'a surge in FBI resources' nationwide to unsolved violent crimes on Indian lands. As part of Operation Not Forgotten, 60 FBI personnel will be sent to field offices to support investigations of Indian Country violent crimes. The FBI will use 'the latest forensic evidence processing tools to solve cases,' according to the announcement. The Missing and Murdered Unit will help the FBI. 'Violent crime continues to disproportionately impact communities in Indian Country,' Ferguson said. Also Thursday, the EBCI tribal council unanimously approved a resolution calling for the creation of a single database of missing and murdered indigenous people, according to a recording of the meeting. The resolution says indigenous communities, including the EBCI, 'have been disproportionately affected by the crisis' of missing and murdered people. Many EBCI cases have been 'unreported, uninvestigated or unresolved due to jurisdictional barriers and gaps in data collection,' according to the resolution. On March 6, the Cherokee asked people to submit the names of missing and murdered EBCI members to Brooklyn Brown, reporter for the One Feather tribal newspaper, by calling 828-359-6264 or emailing at broobrow@ At the beginning of this fiscal year, the FBI's Indian Country program had about 4,300 open investigations, including over 900 death investigations, 1,000 child abuse investigations and at least 500 domestic violence and adult sexual abuse investigations, according to Ferguson's office. Since 2019, the operation has recovered 10 child victims and netted 52 arrests and 25 indictments and judicial complaints.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Yahoo
Justice Department allocates resources to Indian Country to assist FBI with unresolved violent crimes
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Amid an increase in unsolved violent crime in Indian Country, the U.S. Department of Justice is ramping up FBI personnel at sites across the country, including New Mexico. 'What it really does, it just kind of force multiplies our resources,' said Special Agent in Charge Raul Bujanda. Story continues below Weather: Heavy snow moves into parts of New Mexico this weekend Sports: Jake Hall commits to New Mexico men's basketball Crime: APD investigating Walmart shooting as potential justifiable homicide On Tuesday, the Justice Department alerted FBI agencies across the United States that they will send 60 agents, on 90-day temporary duty assignments over a six-month period, to address an influx in violent crime and the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous people on tribal lands. 'So, the investigations don't necessarily change different. Sometimes when you hear we're surging resources, it kind of implies that there's going to be like a big operation. What they actually do is allow us to work on cases that happened yesterday,' continued Bujanda, who leads the FBI Division out of Albuquerque. Operation Not Forgotten, an initiative that launched in 2023, provides intelligence and victim service support to Indian Country offices. The surge in resources allows field agents to quickly find violent offenders and those who have gone missing. 'It helps us have more resources to be able to work with them, because they are also inundated with things that are happening. We can provide a person or an agent that can be there with them when these crimes are happening,' emphasized Bujanda. Bujanda said the program has been well-received thus fair, with cooperation from tribal leaders and community members alike, 'It gives more of an opportunity to have more one-on-one conversations with law enforcement community because we're not just chasing the next investigation, but we can also focus on that investigation and have attendance at the community event so that we are having that connection with our community.' The Justice Department said Indian Country faces persistent levels of crime and victimization. In New Mexico, the FBI hopes to focus its efforts on the Navajo Nation near Farmington and Gallup, where they see a disproportionate amount of violent crime against women and children. This is the third deployment under Operation Not Forgotten, which has provided investigative support to more than 500 cases in the past two years. These operations resulted in the recovery of ten child victims, 52 arrests, and 25 indictments or judicial complaints. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
