{"id":128470,"date":"2020-08-03T15:01:58","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T22:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/?p=128470"},"modified":"2023-04-19T09:55:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T16:55:11","slug":"unsolved-missing-indigenous-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/_zh\/california-divide\/2020\/08\/unsolved-missing-indigenous-women\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cPervasive failure to investigate:\u201d Report finds lack of scrutiny in cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women"},"content":{"rendered":"

For generations, order and cleanliness had been Christina Lastra\u2019s family\u2019s way of fighting off poverty. But the day in July 1991 when her mother\u2019s mysterious death was ruled an accident marked the end of the orderly life Lastra had been leading in Humboldt County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t get peace. No one ever even thought of looking further into the death of a Native woman, of my mom,\u201d said Lastra, who identifies as Indigenous and Chicana. \u201cUntil now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt creates a sense of hopelessness. It makes it feel like this is a world that we can\u2019t live in anymore.\u201d<\/p>annita lucchesi, sovereign bodies institute<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A new report by the Sovereign Bodies Institute, a data-driven nonprofit 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the California cases classified as murders, law enforcement solved 9%, researchers found. The statewide clearance rate is more than 60% in the past decade<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWomen after women, disappearing,\u201d said Annita Lucchesi, the executive director of SBI and a Cheyenne descendant. \u201cIt creates a sense of hopelessness. It makes it feel like this is a world that we can\u2019t live in anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cases documented in the institute\u2019s report span over a century, but 72% occurred after 2000, and problems collecting data on crimes against Native American women suggest the actual number is much higher \u2014 around 1,700 statewide since 1900, according to researchers who extrapolated from existing data.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

California is home to 700,000 Indigenous people, the largest Native American population in the country, but there is no reliable data on missing Native women in the state, according to Lucchesi, who said more than half of the cases in the state were not in official missing persons databases. When records were available, the report found, Native women were often misclassified as white, or their deaths were labeled accidental even when family and friends thought otherwise. Much about the cases remains unknown because of difficulties in data collection and a \u201cchronic and pervasive failure to investigate,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost a year after she learned her mother, Alicia Lara, had died in a car accident, Lastra said she reached out to the county coroner. She had heard that someone from Weitchpec, where her mother was found, had seen her shortly before her death, badly beaten up. That\u2019s when she learned that her mother\u2019s body had been found in the passenger seat of her car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf they\u2019d just ask around, I think people in Weitchpec knew that she didn\u2019t have an accident,\u201d Lastra said. \u201cBut she wasn\u2019t important enough to open an investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal, who has headed the department since 2013, said the case report for Lastra\u2019s mother didn\u2019t strike him as particularly suspicious. But he said he did have trouble understanding how Lara had gotten in the passenger seat. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to see how this could\u2019ve happened,\u201d Honsal said. No investigation was opened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere may have been things that have happened in the past, things that didn\u2019t go well, where communication didn\u2019t happen,\u201d Honsal said. \u201cWe\u2019re learning from past mistakes, trying not to repeat that in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastra\u2019s perception that local police didn\u2019t put enough effort into her mother\u2019s case isn\u2019t unique. Lucchesi said the report found deep mistrust toward law enforcement among Indigenous women.<\/p>\n\n\n