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A national center for Native radio and TV broadcasters is leading an effort to establish an alert code for missing and endangered adults.
The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel has more.
In 2022, more than 10,000 Indigenous people were reported missing to the FBI.
That’s a higher rate of disappearance than the general population.
That’s why Native Public Media is petitioning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to create the Missing and Endangered Persons event code, similar to what the Amber Alert is for missing children.
Loris Taylor is the CEO of Native Public Media and a member of Arizona’s Hopi Nation.
“Native Americans face a crisis, we’re three times more likely to experience violent crime. And there’s been a wave of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls for a very long time.”
She says a dedicated national alert would help law enforcement and communities locate these individuals.
On March 14, the FCC will discuss the proposed alert code.
If approved, a public comment period on its proposed rules would follow.
The Mountain West News Bureau distributes some of its stories through Native Public Media.
In California, a notification system for Native people marked its one-year implementation in January.
The Feather Alert is used to notify the public and law enforcement about missing Native Americans, especially women and girls.
Tribal leaders, law enforcement, and California state lawmakers are reviewing the program for more effective use.
Assemblymember James Ramos (Serrano/Cahuilla/D-CA) authored legislation creating the alert.
He says it’s a great tool.
Asm. Ramos says, in its first year, the notification system had some positive results, but it needs some tweaks.
“The Feather Alert follows the AMBER Alert here in the state of California. And one of the complexities of it is now you include tribal governments into the component. So we created the law. It’s the first year that it went through. We understand that there was five different times that it was requested to be implemented. Three of those were denied. Two of them were implemented. Those two that were implemented, those individuals were found and brought back home safely.”
There are questions surrounding why the other three were not implemented.
Asm. Ramos says those questions are being raised with the California Highway Patrol, which administers the system.
“Working with the California Highway Patrol (CHP), who’s open, the Commissioner Duret, is open to criticism, open to make it a finer piece of arsenal for those to bring back the missing.”
A bill to make changes to the Feather Alert with suggestions from tribes and law enforcement is included in a package of bills Asm. Ramos recently announced for 2024.
“And it’s unique because there’s a lot of bills that pass in the California State Legislature that never get brought back up to fine tune them. Again, Indian people are leading the way. After a year, we’re already bringing this bill back up to fine tune it. I think we’re leading the way of how some other bills could be fine tuned that affect California’s people.”
Asm. Ramos says part of the challenge with the Feather Alert is making the general public aware of it and bridging communication gaps among law enforcement agencies and tribes.
The issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people has been one of his priorities since Asm. Ramos was elected in 2018 becoming the first California Native American to serve in the state legislature.
This story is a collaboration with First Nations Experience Television with support from the Public Welfare Foundation, committed to advancing transformative youth and criminal justice reform.
The virtual panel “Accelerating Empowerment of Indigenous Women and Girls” is planned for March 12 to address violence against Indigenous women in the Americas.
It will feature speakers from Brazil, Guatemala, Peru, and the U.S.
It’s co-sponsored by a number of Indigenous organizations.
This event is part of the NGO-CSW Forum during the 68th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
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