Tracking the violence: Missing or murdered
Albuquerque has high rate for cases involving Native American women and girls
Out of 71 cities across the country, Albuquerque has one of the highest numbers of urban Native American women and girls who had been reported missing or were murdered, according to a recently published report by the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle.
According to the report, 37 indigenous women and girls have been reported missing or murdered in Albuquerque since 1996, making the city second only to Seattle.
In urban New Mexico — that includes Albuquerque, Farmington, Gallup and Santa Fe — 78 women and girls were reported missing or murdered since 1956, making it the state with the highest instances of violence against that demographic.
Gallup — a much smaller city than Albuquerque — had 25 cases of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, making it sixth in the nation.
Although the researchers requested statistics dating back to 1900
from police departments across the country, the majority of the reported cases occurred after 2010.
Since each city was able to provide statistics starting from a different date, the time frames do not neatly match up.
A total of 506 cases of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls were counted nationally, although the report states that the number is likely an undercount due to sporadic data collection by law enforcement and the institute’s limited resources.
Annita Lucchesi, a doctoral research fellow at UIHI who co-authored the report, said out of the 37 indigenous women in Albuquerque, three are still reported missing, 16 were murdered and the status of the remaining 18 are unknown — meaning they no longer show up on the missing persons databases but it’s unclear whether they were found.
Albuquerque had the highest number of unknown cases.
“(The data) comes from a variety of different sources. We did use the New Mexico state missing persons database and we also used NamUs —the federal missing persons database,” Lucchesi, who is a descendent of the Southern Cheyenne, said in a phone interview this week. “We have news article coverage ... In some cases families do volunteer information as well.”
For Albuquerque, however, the data did not come from the police department.
Lucchesi said she filed a records request with the Albuquerque Police Department on July 7, 2018, but it was never acknowledged or completed.
“We sent seven follow-ups to the request and never got a response to any of those either,” she said.
Gilbert Gallegos, an APD spokesman, said the department does not have any record of a request from the Urban Indian Health Institute.
Gallegos said APD homicide Sgt. Dennis Tafoya told him the unit does not keep track of the race of homicide victims. He didn’t know if the missing person’s unit does.
Even though APD did not provide records, Lucchesi pointed out that there have been a handful of slayings of Native American women over the past couple of years.
One of the most high-profile cases was the stabbing of Audra Willis, of To’hajiilee, whose body was found decapitated in an arroyo in Four Hills last December. No one has been arrested and police have not publicly identified a suspect or a motive.
“We can’t respond to violence we don’t track,” Lucchesi said. “So if we’re wanting to make sure our cities and communities are safe for all of our community members, we need to have some open dialogue on how to address the violence. We can’t do that if we don’t understand what’s even happening. Not just the number of cases, but the dynamics of them.”
Lucchesi said she and co-author Abigail Echo-Hawk of the Pawnee tribe focused on women and girls because they experience violence specifically related to their gender.
“While it is true indigenous men and boys experience high rates of violence as well, that was outside the scope of this study,” she said. “If anything, that shows that there is much room for continued research on these types of issues, that needs some sustained support.”
The researchers zeroed in on Native Americans living in cities because while approximately 71 percent of indigenous people live in urban areas, most research is centered on reservation land, according to the report.
To counteract this imbalance, the report recommends allocating additional funding and resources to studying violence against urban Native populations in the future. It also recommends diversifying media outlets so they are better equipped to fairly and accurately report on the Native American communities without relying on stereotypes or harmful language.
In response to questions about what Albuquerque and APD have done to address violence against Native American women and girls, Gallegos said police are putting together an outreach effort to increase communication with tribal communities and build trust.
“The city is in the process of expanding the Commission on Indian Affairs and changing its name in city ordinance,” Gallegos wrote in an email. “This commission will re-establish a task force or subcommittee to look into the homelessness issues and violence, among other areas of priority.”