WASHINGTON – Law enforcement will soon have a new tool to help them find missing indigenous people in Washington State. House Bill 1725, which allows for the creation of an alert system for missing indigenous people, passed in both the House and Senate with bipartisan support.
Washington State Patrol would be required to create the alert system and a database with information about the missing. Other law enforcement agencies would be able to use this information on a voluntary basis to help them find missing indigenous people.
According to Washington State Patrol’s list of missing indigenous people, there are about 108 missing indigenous people in Washington state. The majority of those people are Yakama Nation.
Representative Debra Lekanoff sponsored HB 1725. She said it’s important to have an alert system just for indigenous people because indigenous women are more likely to go missing than any other race. This alert system would increase awareness.
“It not only becomes an issue of just Indian country, it becomes an issue of my neighbor, it becomes a crisis for my other neighbor,” Rep. Lekanoff said. “It becomes known at the grocery store by a cashier, it is an alert system that will make a difference and raise the awareness that the unheard screams will go heard.”
The MMIW/P alert system will work like a silver alert. It will pop up on people’s phones so everyone knows who to look for.
Silver alerts have a proven record of working. In Wisconsin, it has a 96% success rate of locating missing vulnerable people. In Texas, the success rate during the silver alert’s first year was 92%.
Carolyn DeFord advocates for MMIW/P families and has a missing loved one of her own. Her mother Leona Kinsey has been missing for 22 years. DeFord said this alert system could be helpful in some situations.
“For our larger cities like Seattle or even Tri-cities, where we need to get the message out to a large number of people as quickly as possible, whatever we have that could help us find our loved ones is needed,” DeFord said.
However, she added she would like to see more resources backing the alert system.
“As a family member, if you really want it to work, are you going to put some money behind it?” DeFord asked. “Are you gonna give it the tools to make it work, put some mandatory criteria behind it? Like right now it’s voluntary.”
Rep. Lekanoff said the system is voluntary because tribes are their own sovereign nations and can’t be forced to use it. She also said there would be training for law enforcement.
With the bill now headed to the governor’s desk, Rep. Lekanoff thinks of the missing, murdered and families of victims.
“I hear their voices, I hear the voices of mothers, aunties, grandmothers, I pause and remember that now daughters will know they mattered,” Rep. Lekanoff said.
