{"id":96628,"date":"2018-12-18T12:10:59","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T19:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/senate-hears-stories-of-indian-countrys-missing-and-murdered\/"},"modified":"2018-12-18T12:10:59","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T19:10:59","slug":"senate-hears-stories-of-indian-countrys-missing-and-murdered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/senate-hears-stories-of-indian-countrys-missing-and-murdered\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate hears stories of Indian Country\u2019s missing and murdered"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"J.
J. Scott Applewhite\/AP ImagesNavajo Nation Council Delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty and Patricia Alexander, a member of the Tlingit and Haida Alaskan tribes, exchange words of encouragement to each other before testifying in the Senate hearing.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The last time someone saw Ashley Loring-Heavy Runner, she was running away from a man\u2019s vehicle on US Highway 89 along the Rocky Mountain Front on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. The 20-year-old was reported missing in June 2017, and since then, the only development in her investigation was the discovery of a black sweater and a pair of boots, now languishing in a Bureau of Indian Affairs evidence room.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Loring-Heavy Runner\u2019s sister, Kimberly Loring-Heavy Runner, told senators Wednesday during testimony for the Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs. \u201cI believe law enforcement did not take Ashley\u2019s case seriously, as well as other girls who have gone missing and murdered on Indian Country,\u201d Loring-Heavy Runner said, later adding, \u201cThey failed Ashley.\u201d<\/p>\n

The oversight hearing on missing and murdered Indigenous women featured a litany of statistics from federal investigators, as well as personal stories from Loring-Heavy Runner and two other Indigenous women, highlighting the dire need of more funding and legislative attention to a crisis of unknown proportions \u2014 unknown because of a dearth in data and record keeping on the part of federal, state and tribal governments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of this hearing is not to talk about if we have a problem. It\u2019s to talk about what you\u2019re going to do about it,\u201d outgoing Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., told a row of federal officials from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Federal Bureau of Investigations and National Institute of Justice. \u201cWhen these crimes go uninvestigated, when they go unsolved for long, long periods of time, or ignored for long, long periods of time, that\u2019s your failure. It\u2019s not the community\u2019s failure, it\u2019s your failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Violence against women in Indian Country is a pressing and long-standing problem; Native women are murdered at a rate ten times the national average, but tribes cannot prosecute murderers. Eighty-four percent of Native American and Alaskan Native women have experienced some form of violence, 56 percent of which is sexual violence. Ninety-seven percent of crimes against Indigenous people are committed by non-Natives, yet tribes can\u2019t prosecute non-Natives for crimes like sexual assault or rape.<\/p>\n

As a legislative body that passes laws and appropriates money for tribal nations and federal programs that serve Native communities, Congress has a powerful role in addressing the problem. So far there have been only a handful of acts and resolutions passed to address the problem of violence against Indigenous women (see sidebar).<\/p>\n

Much of Wednesday\u2019s hearing revealed a lack of federal prioritization for cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous women, as well as a lack of funding and resources to enforce existing statutes. When Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., asked why so many cases were stymied and what needs to change, none of the officials from the BIA, FBI or the National Institute of Justice responded beyond suggesting better coordination between state, tribal and federal agencies. Both Tester and Heitkamp later noted that only the BIA\u2019s Director of Office of Justice Services, Charles Addington, stayed to hear testimony from Loring-Heavy Runner and two other Native women. \u201cIt makes us all question the real commitment to this issue, and that\u2019s tragic,\u201d Heitkamp said.<\/p>\n

From the Navajo Nation, Council Delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty shared stories of seven missing or murdered women and girls to illustrate the shortcomings of law enforcement, from 11-year-old Ashlynne Mike kidnapped and killed in Shiprock, New Mexico, to 63-year-old Marena Holiday, murdered by a neighbor in Comb Ridge, Utah. The Nation is severely understaffed and underfunded to adequately respond to crimes, Crotty testified, which has meant Navajo courts have been unable to enact the Violence Against Women Act provisions that would allow them to prosecute non-Native offenders of domestic violence against Indigenous women. An estimated $10 million a year would be needed to handle the increased caseload. And they have received little help from federal or state agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a criminal justice system that sometimes just does not provide justice for the missing and the murdered in Indian Country. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve been seeing time and time again,\u201d Crotty told senators. \u201cWe do not have jurisdiction to deal with this matter. We do not have the funding to do it. We are bound by federal law that has taken this authority away from us.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the three-hour hearing, Tester said he was unsatisfied with responses from federal officials on what needs to change to address the problem of murdered and missing Indigenous women in Indian Country. \u201cI\u2019m not sure we got any answers today,\u201d said Tester, who requested the hearing along with Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont. \u201cBut Mr. Chairman, I don\u2019t think this should be our last hearing on this, I\u2019ll tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

What has Congress done?<\/h4>\n

Savanna\u2019s Act: Introduced by Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D, in 2017, the act requires the Department of Justice to include victim\u2019s tribal affiliation in federal databases, consult with tribes on cases regarding missing and murdered Indigenous people and standardize protocols for those cases. The act passed the Senate in December, and now goes to the House.
\n Violence Against Women Act: Currently up for reauthorization, VAWA gives critical support to resources and protection for Indigenous women who face sexual violence, assault and rape. It restored tribal jurisdiction over non-Natives who commit domestic violence, but importantly, it does not protect women who are enrolled members of 228 tribes in Alaska because they are not included in the legal term \u2018Indian Country.\u2019
\n Tribal Law and Order Act: Passed in 2010, the act gives more sentencing power to tribal courts, requires that the U.S. Attorney General submit a report to Congress annually that includes FBI investigations in Indian Country, and bolsters tribal police training and funding.
\n The SURVIVE Act: Introduced this year by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., it\u2019s a five-year bill that would set aside $150 million annually to help with law enforcement and investigations into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
\n Ashlynne Mike AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act: Passed into law this year, the act makes tribal nations eligible for AMBER alert grants and integrates tribal and state AMBER alert systems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

gaps, understaffing and lax investigations have deepened the crisis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,561],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-96628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-native-american"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96628"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=96628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}