WA Senate passes first U.S. alert system for missing and murdered Indigenous people
A new bill to create the country’s first-ever alert system to help identify and locate missing Indigenous women and people passed the Washington state Senate Thursday, March. 3.
The bill had previously passed the house unanimously on Jan. 28 and must go back for concurrence.
Similar to “silver alerts” for missing vulnerable adults, the system created by House Bill 1725 would broadcast information about missing Indigenous people on message signs and highway advisory radio messages as well as through press releases to local and regional media.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced his intent to propose the bill in the current Washington state legislative session in January.
“The unheard screams of missing and murdered people will be heard across Washington state with the implementation of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Alert System,” said Washington state Rep. Debra Lekanoff, who worked with Ferguson on the bill, in a January news release.
Lekanoff, who represents the 40th Legislative District that includes southern Whatcom County and part of Bellingham, is an Alaska native with Tlingit and Aleut heritage and the Legislature’s only Indigenous woman.
“The leadership that the Attorney General and all our governing bodies are doing, rising up and moving the red hand away from those unheard screams helps me believe that our daughters’ daughters will be safe in this state. My daughter will be safe,” Lekanoff said in an interview with McClatchy Thursday, March 3.
She is hopeful Gov. Inslee will approve the bill and Washington will lead the country in creating the first Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People alert system.
“‘I’m so proud to partner with Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who has been a national leader in doing the right thing even when the right thing seems impossible,” she said. “I believe the governor should be so proud that his partners in the legislative branch see the protection of Native American women not as a political matter, but a matter of providing safety for all Washingtonians. ... He will be that governor who joins all Washingtonians in putting an end to this crisis.”
In Washington, more than four times as many Indigenous women go missing than white women, according to research conducted by the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle.
The institute’s research found Washington state has the second-highest number of cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the U.S. Of the 71 urban areas studied, Seattle had the highest number of murdered Indigenous women and Tacoma had the highest number of missing cases.
“The rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Washington is a crisis,” Ferguson said in a news release. “We must do everything we can to address this problem. This effective tool will help quickly and safely locate missing Indigenous women and people.”
This story was originally published March 3, 2022 at 1:07 PM with the headline "WA Senate passes first U.S. alert system for missing and murdered Indigenous people."
