Oklahoma's new Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples task force is holding meetings around the state to identify the gaps in solving the MMIP crisis. The task force, created by the Attorney General's Office, held its first public listening session last Friday at the Cheyenne Arapaho Service Center in Oklahoma City.
The listening session attracted MMIP activists from across central and western Oklahoma, who shared what issues they believe are the most pressing.
Carmen Harvie, the chair of the state chapter of MMIP in Oklahoma, identified lack of funding as a salient issue. Chapters like hers require money for flyers and staples to notify of missing persons, and she said law enforcement needs more resources to prioritize MMIP cases.
"As a family member that has lost a niece to a double homicide in McAlester, Oklahoma, in that area with no justice for over as probably as long as I've been in the movement volunteer wise, it's a lot," Harvie, who is Choctaw and Hualapai, said. "But partnerships are good. Law enforcement needs more funding, needs a lot benefits, whatever, just to keep them working."
One way Harvie is trying to solve this funding problem is by being resourceful and applying for grants. She said she wants to use grant money to work with other organizations across Oklahoma to buy and utilize copy machines in different regions to help disseminate missing persons information.
"Because I can't go from northwest Oklahoma all the way to southeast Oklahoma in minutes because time is of the essence when someone is missing," Harvie said.
There are 20 MMIP chapters in Oklahoma, according to Harvie. Each has its own strengths, such as active search-and-rescue efforts, victim services, education, prevention and awareness. She's glad the attorney general's office is bringing MMIP advocates together with tribal leaders to develop workable solutions.
Task force member LaRenda Morgan also leads the Cheyenne and Arapaho MMIP chapter. She said law enforcement cultural competency training needs to be addressed.
"Law enforcement training is a priority in my eyes because we rely on law enforcement to investigate when a loved one goes missing, and sometimes jurisdictions and their boundaries create limitations in investigations," Morgan said. "... I can't say all law enforcement, but some that I've experienced don't have that [cultural] sensitivity."
Morgan noted training should be free for law enforcement to make it more accessible. She also hopes a central database is created to help tribal citizens who may have gone missing outside of state lines and to clear up redundancy and misinformation in other databases, such as the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
Other attendees, such as Cheyenne and Arapaho Governor Reggie Wassana and Kiowa Education Agency representative Toni Tsatoke-Mule, said educating children and preventing the perpetuation of the problem needs to be the focus.
"A lot of these things do start with cell phone safety," Tsatoke-Mule said. "They start with objectifying girls at a very young age where it's very normalized in middle schools and junior highs for boys to ask girls for photos of their body parts and things like that."
Norene Starr, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes' special projects coordinator, said the problem is not just coming from strangers, but may be coming from inside the home.
"They're the dirty uncle, the nasty grandpa," Starr said. "They're the ones that are perpetrating the behavior, like you discussed, of objectifying our young girls and our young boys. …I don't know how we could approach that without offending. But I know that it needs to be talked about and it needs to be out on the table."
A spokesperson for the attorney general's office said there will be four regional public listening sessions before the end of June, scheduled before Christmas. The next regional meeting is expected in February.
Along with the public listening sessions, the task force is also holding private criminal justice meetings to discuss database and reporting tools that can be improved for better consistency and accessibility.
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