When Yurok tribe member Daniel Ipiña Vigil disappeared in San Francisco last summer, her family asked state police to help authorities search for missing Native Americans in California. requested the issuance of a Feather Alert, an emergency notification.
However, the request was denied, making Ipiña-Vigil one of three known cases of missing California natives last year whose Feather Alert requests were denied. The California Highway Patrol says it has issued just two of the five Feather Alerts the agency has requested since the program began a year ago.
CHP officials said local officials rejected the request because it did not meet their requirements. standardThese include that the person has gone missing under suspicious circumstances and is believed by authorities to be in danger.
But the denial has raised concerns in Indigenous communities that the system that was supposed to help find missing Indigenous people is not working as intended.
“We've had two successful Feather Alerts and been denied many times,” Taralyn Ipiña said, talking about her sister Danielle, who went missing in June. gloomy press conference Wednesday. She was later found, but details of her case are limited. “Being denied Feather Alert based on opinion contradicts the fundamentals of Feather Alert. [this] law”.
Now, Sacramento policymakers are reevaluating how well the law is working. Last week, more than a dozen California tribe members gathered at the Capitol to demand information on three missing persons alerts that were denied. They also want to remove a statute requiring local law enforcement to act as a buffer between tribes and CHP, and instead pave the way for state and tribal police to work together.
“Alerts must be issued by the CHP according to its structure. But the intermediary is the local law enforcement agency where the request comes in,” said CHP Director Sean Durie, who testified at the hearing. “Some people do really, really good things. What we're told is that intermediaries can sometimes cause problems for tribal communities.”
Feather alert, sign in 2022 lawwas designed similarly to Amber Alert, which has located more than 1,100 missing children across the country since its inception in 1996. Rep. James Ramos (D-Highland), the first California Native American elected to the state Legislature, said the high incidence of violence and kidnapping in tribal communities has led the state to create a separate program for missing Native Americans. He argued that a system was necessary. This is his one of seven categories of missing person alerts in California.
New data shows the CHP approved all six Amber Alert requests it received in the same year it denied three Feather Alert requests.
Leaders and members of the state's tribes, including the Yurok and Meuk tribes, arrived at the Capitol early in the morning to demand clarity on these requirements and urgent action on missing person reports.
“We can't afford to be caught in the middle of the California Highway Patrol and the tribe,” said Yurok Tribe Chairman Joe James, who lives near the lower Klamath River. “Why were they rejected?”
There are currently 151 missing American Indian/Alaska Native cases in California. At least one rejected Feather Alert came from Humboldt County, which currently has the highest number of cases.
Duryee did not go into details. during the public hearing It cited cases in which it had been refused because of privacy laws, but said the officer who responded to the request “did not feel that the standard was met.”
Tribal members said these denials are a reminder of historical trauma related to missing and murdered persons cases that have been underreported for decades. This is why Feather Alert was created in the first place.
“There are so many factors that come into play in determining whether someone is missing,” Durie said. “Just because someone isn't subject to a Feather Alert doesn't mean we need to wash our hands thoroughly.”
Dooley said law enforcement still has the authority to perform “traditional police work” such as license plate recognition and the use of cell phone data. “Just because there's no alert doesn't mean law enforcement isn't responding,” he said.
During an emotional hours-long pre-trial hearing, Congressional Select Committee on Native American IssuesIndigenous peoples expressed distrust of the national system for reporting crimes and missing persons.
Meri Lopez Kiefer, director of the California Department of Justice's Indian Affairs Division, testified that the agency is reevaluating data on crimes against tribal members, citing the potential for “misidentification” and “underreporting” of race. He said only one racial category can be selected for missing person reports, which doesn't take into account the “vast landscape and regional differences” across the state.
“This approach may overlook potential incidents involving multiple races,” Lopez-Kiefer said. “This is especially true in the context of American Indians and Alaska Natives, who are often racially misclassified as white, Hispanic, or Asian.”
“We don't necessarily know the numbers, that's the truth,” she said.
Tribal communities are pushing for changes to the law that include giving tribal law enforcement the authority to issue Feather Alerts. Ramos said he plans to introduce a bill in the coming weeks.
“Today's hearing was about getting ideas out into the open,” he told the Times. “And now I'm going to work.”
