The event was held in honor of MMIP Awareness Day, which falls on May 5 of each year. Those in attendance advocated for better collaboration between law enforcement agencies and media organizations.
Attendees wore shirts honoring their loved ones and held posters of victims who remain missing, and sang songs of honor for those lost to the crisis.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous-Chahta, a non-profit advocacy group working alongside the Choctaw Nation, handed out pamphlets detailing their services for those who may need them. Among them was Choctaw citizen and Vice Chairman Jennifer Spainhour.
"I'd say we're more of a survivor advocacy group, than a victim one," she said. "Our family members and relatives that we serve… They don't want to take on that victim mentality. They're ready to stand and they're ready to become that next person."
She said these events are important because they serve as a voice for those lost.
"Today we're the voice. We are here to be the voice for our families. We are here to be the voice for our relatives and to be the voice for our tribal nations," she said. "We're here to show that we are standing in solidarity with our sisters, our brothers, our mothers, our families. We will not be quiet. This is a true crisis and we are going to stand together united."
Other groups who appeared included the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and Choctaw Freedmen Representative Ron Stewart, who gave updates on Ida's Law and the latest MMIP statistics.
As of 2024, Oklahoma ranked second in the nation for MMIP cases. At that time, the state had 86 missing tribal members.
Recently, the remains of Cherokee Nation citizen Aubrey Dameron, who went missing in 2019, were found within the Picher superfund site of rural Ottawa County, just north of Commerce. She was 25 when she disappeared.
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
