Tribal members, law enforcement and state employees talked with lawmakers about the status of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) crisis at an interim Select Committee on Tribal Relations meeting in Fort Washakie last month.
Members of the state’s MMIP task force shared findings from its most recent analysis on rates of Native homicide and missing persons cases in the state over the last five years. The report shows Indigenous people are eight times more likely to be the victims of a homicide than white residents.
Tribal liaison updates
Anita Roman is the tribal liaison to the Northern Arapaho Tribe out of Gov. Mark Gordon’s office. She emphasized the crisis is close to home for many.
“ This isn't just a conversation with statistics. This isn't just books,” she said. “I'm really glad that we have this data to support what we know already personally.”
Roman said the governor’s office has been working on trainings with community members and law enforcement to build more trust and more competency around responding to MMIP-related incidents.
“ I implemented the original CATE training, which is a child abduction tabletop exercise training that came from [the National Criminal Justice Training Center] of Fox Valley [in Wisconsin],” she said. “We had the [Wyoming] Highway Patrol come out and they helped talk about all of the different alerts that surround the state of Wyoming.”
James Sorrels, tribal liaison to the Eastern Shoshone Tribe out of the governor’s office, emphasized the need for more trainings in the future that bring together different types of law enforcement.
“Most of these alerts that go out, they are multi-jurisdictional, so it is a big thing to try and get these children, get the word out there as quick as they can and get these agencies to cooperate and get that child home,” he said.
Roman said she’d also like to pursue future training for law enforcement about how different co-related traumas can influence victimization, as well as training to help young people to better understand dating violence and stalking.
“ I don't think that we're always thinking about [dating violence, but when we watch these shows about romance and love, it's actually, in reality, a stalking situation,” she said. “I think really trying to begin with that dating violence or the beginning warning signs. How do we start that conversation?”
Christie Wildcat is one of two new volunteer MMIP liaisons for the Northern Arapaho Tribe and said that sustained collaboration between all parties is crucial for building safer communities.
“ We need continued support for tribal victim services, continual training for law enforcement, and meaningful partnerships that help respect tribal sovereignty and the knowledge that we bring to the table,” she said.
FBI review and a cold case reopened
Last year, the FBI created a dedicated tip line to try to gather new information about MMIP cases in the area. It didn’t yield any new discoveries, but the agency also took a look at homicide data from the last 10 years as part of the initiative.
FBI Special Agent Leonard Carollo shared details about what patterns stood out at the interim meeting in Fort Washakie.
“We identified that gunshot wounds were the primary manner of death for those homicide cases,” he said. “We identified that the majority of Native American homicides in Wyoming occur in and around the reservation and involve both Native American offenders and Native American victims.”
The FBI is the main agency that investigates these sorts of crimes when they involve tribal members on the Wind River Reservation.
Carollo also added that the ages of both parties “varied greatly” and said intoxicants were “a major contributing factor” in the investigations that the agency reviewed. He did not go into more detail about specific trends with different types of intoxicants.
The FBI will also reopen a 1969 cold case involving the death of an infant on the reservation, with the plan to use new forensic genetic genealogy (FGG) technology to help figure out the child’s identity.
In that vein, Wyoming’s Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Commander Ryan Cox gave an update on its FGG pilot program, which stemmed from a 2024 bill that allocated $150,000 to the agency to explore the technology.
FGG uses genetic material to trace backwards through open source data family trees to help identify victims and perpetrators. Cox said DCI is consulting with state law enforcement on a “handful” of cases that might be able to use the technology, which has a relatively specific set of parameters.
“ I'd love to sit here and say that ‘Yeah, we've got that big success,’” he said. “I know it's going to come. I track DNA cases all across the country. It is going to happen. It's just, we haven't got there yet … It took us a little while to promulgate the rules, to get the application, to get the word out, so I still feel like we're really just in the beginning phase of this.”
The Select Committee on Tribal Relations will meet again on Oct. 23 and 24, but a meeting location and agenda has not yet been released.
