Report finds lack of scrutiny in cases of missing and murdered indigenous women
For generations, order and cleanliness had been Christina Lastra’s family’s way of fighting off poverty. But the day in July 1991 when her mother’s mysterious death was ruled an accident marked the end of the orderly life Lastra had been leading in Humboldt County.
“We didn’t get peace. No one ever even thought of looking further into the death of a Native woman, of my mom,” said Lastra, who identifies as indigenous and Chicana, “until now.”
A new report by the Sovereign Bodies Institute, a data-driven non-profit based in Humboldt, details for the first time the lack of scrutiny and data surrounding the cases of 105 missing and murdered indigenous women and girls across northern California, from the Bay Area to the Oregon border. Using state and federal data, other research, police reports and community-based information, the institute found more than 2,300 cases in the United States.
Of the California cases classified as murders, law enforcement solved 9 percent, researchers found. The statewide clearance rate is more than 60 percent in the past decade, according to the state Department of Justice, meaning that murders of indigenous women in northern California were about seven times less likely to be solved than homicides involving all other victims.
“Women after women, disappearing,” said Annita Lucchesi, the executive director of SBI and a Cheyenne descendant. “It creates a sense of hopelessness. It makes it feel like this is a world that we can’t live in anymore.”