State system will report missing Native Americans
Law enforcement and tribal officials from across the state gathered Friday in San Bernardino to tout the state's newest emergency notification system, designed to alert the public in real time when Indigenous people go missing under suspicious circumstances.
The Feather Alert system took effect Jan. 1 as a result of Assembly Bill 1314, authored by Assemblymember James Ramos, D-Highland. California's law enforcement agencies and Highway Patrol will activate the alerts whenever a Native American goes missing.
During a news conference at the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, Ramos said California ranks seventh in the nation for unsolved Native American homicides and homicides not investigated.
“The toleration of sitting back and doing nothing is not an option,” Ramos said. “We moved forward with the state Legislature and implemented Feather Alert.”
Friday's news conference was followed by a roundtable summit on the Feather Alert system in the sheriff's conference room.
Capt. Ken Roberts, Amber Alert coordinator for the California Highway Patrol, said the Feather Alert also has been added to an already robust system that includes the Amber Alert, Endangered Missing Persons Alert, Silver Alert — activated when an elderly, developmentally or cognitively impaired person goes missing and is determined to be at risk — and the Blue Alert, when a law enforcement officer is killed or seriously injured and his or her assailant has fled.
“This just adds to the tool belts to help and assist the allied agencies that investigate the missing persons, and we're able to get out real-time information to the public,” Roberts said.
Charles Martin, chairman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, said, “We have created a powerful new tool for protecting tribal communities. Implementation of the Feather Alert is a critical step forward in addressing the deadly epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous people in California.”
He said Indigenous women are murdered at a rate that is 10 times the national average, and that Native Americans experience disproportionately higher rates of abduction and violent crimes.
“When any person goes missing, every second counts,” Martin said. “The public and law enforcement notifications that will be issued by the Feather Alert system will provide communities and law enforcement with critical real-time information.”
An article published by the University of North Dakota School of Law in 2021, titled “Silent Crisis,” noted that while the number of Native American men, women and children who have disappeared or been killed is difficult to gauge, data gleaned from the Sovereign Bodies Institute's database contained 4,754 cases in the U.S. and Canada of missing and killed Indigenous women as of August 2021. Proposition 47 audit
Ramos also announced the launching of a state controller's audit on the effectiveness of Proposition 47 in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. The law, which reduced some drug possession and property crimes offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, has generated fierce criticism and opposition from the law enforcement community since its passage in 2014.