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SALT LAKE CITY — Native Americans make up only 1.5% of Utah's population, but they account for over 5% of the state's murder victims. It's disparities like this that the Utah Murdered and Missing Indigenous Relatives Task Force hopes to end.
The task force released a report Tuesday highlighting the state's epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous individuals, who are disproportionately likely to experience violence, be murdered or go missing.
"We need justice for the victims and justice for the families because a lot of times these families don't have justice. They don't know where their families or relatives are. They don't know if they'll walk through the door, if they're living a happy life somewhere or if they're dead," Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah Councilwoman Tamra Borchardt-Slayton said. "Those are things that we deal with in our communities that aren't often discussed and it should be discussed because every single one of us has a story like this, and I will continue to speak (about) this because I have a story like this in my family and it brings trauma."
Utah has the eighth-highest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls cases in the country and Salt Lake City has the ninth highest out of 71 cities, according to a national report.
"We needed to have research to back up what we thought and what we knew was going on with our Indigenous relatives here in Utah," Romero said. "We're committed to moving this forward. This is a systemic issue, as I want to remind everyone, and it's not going to be solved overnight. It's going to take time."
The report provides dozens of recommendations to address the epidemic, including:
- Strengthening relationships between the state and tribes related to law enforcement and medical examiner needs.
- Providing financial support to tribes and urban Native communities for cultural revitalization programming, violence prevention, emergency support and victim services.
- Ensuring timely, consistent reporting to national crime and missing persons data systems.
- Strengthening responses to missing persons reports and death investigations by supporting tribes in developing their own plans and updating state and local policies and practices to reflect best practices.
- Improving the quality and consistency of communication between law enforcement, prosecutors and families about the status of investigations
- Conducting more direct consultation between the task force and the tribes.
The task force — which consists of lawmakers, state officials specializing in Indigenous issues and Native American leaders — was established in 2020. Members Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, and Sen. David Hinkins, R-Orangeville, say they plan on introducing legislation to extend the task force for at least a few more years to allow time to meet one-on-one with tribal communities about the report.
That legislation will also seek to create a full-time position with the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice to oversee the implementation of the report's recommendations and coordinate between tribes, law enforcement, stakeholders and, possibly, other states. Urban Indian Center of Salt Lake Executive Director Kristina Groves said that the position and the report itself are a great first step.
"It's probably not enough, but it's a good start. ... What we want this to be is that the community has input and is doing the work and the community knows about the issue," she said. "I do think that we're in this little, like, renaissance of Indigenous issues and Indigeneity. That is something I haven't seen that much as I've grown up here in Utah, and so I think it's really important that Native people have a voice."
The (Native) population of Utah is less than 2%. But imagine if we had 50%, if we had 20% of the constituents of Utah behind this cause to help us reinforce the solutions that need to be made to address this epidemic.
–Yolanda Francisco-Nez, executive director of Restoring Ancestral Winds
The task force partnered with the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, which worked on similar issues in Minnesota, to produce the report. Researchers conducted interviews and listening sessions with victims' families and community members, inspected existing federal and state legislation; and reviewed relevant research. They found a number of themes they say define and perpetuate missing and murdered Indigenous relative injustice in Utah, namely:
- Gaps in established and trusting relationships among tribal communities, counties, the state and law enforcement make Indigenous Utahns less likely to report violence and weaken government-to-government collaboration.
- Economic and social vulnerabilities, such as poverty and generational trauma, that increase Indigenous Utahns' risk of experiencing violence and may impact how law enforcement prioritizes their cases.
- A lack of access to investigative resources, expertise, personnel and infrastructure in rural Utah, including some tribal lands.
- A need for consistent, effective communication and information-sharing between law enforcement agencies as well as among victims, their families and law enforcement.
"We have law enforcement that just needs to be coordinated with each other. We got county sheriffs, we got the FBI, we have Bureau of Indian Affairs — we're trying to put it together to where everybody knows what's happening so that when somebody is taken from the community, that we are right on it before anything really happens to them," Hinkins said. "That's our goal is to not have this happen and especially to let people know that Utah is not a welcoming state for this type of behavior. We really want to try to make sure that our citizens are in a safe and secure state, whether they're on the reservations or in Salt Lake or wherever it might be."
Yolanda Francisco-Nez, executive director of the nonprofit Restoring Ancestral Winds, hopes non-Indigenous Utahns pay attention to the report.
"I think if everyone could read that report, it would be an eye-opener for everyone," she said. "It does take allies to do this work. You know, the (Native) population of Utah is less than 2%. But imagine if we had 50%, if we had 20% of the constituents of Utah behind this cause to help us reinforce the solutions that need to be made to address this epidemic."
A copy of the report is available on the Utah Legislature's website.
