As Arizona’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Task Force enters its third year, it continues to seek solutions to the ongoing injustice of Indigenous communities affected by violence and disappearances — from national collaboration and victim compensation outreach to addressing the sober-living home scandal and improving law enforcement training, according to its yearly report.
The group was established in early 2023 by Gov. Katie Hobbs and is organized into four working groups: health, tribal, policy, and judicial. MMIP Coordinator Valaura Imus-Nahsonhoya leads the task force, which has 11 members who are responsible for addressing parts of Hobbs’ executive order during its four-year term.
The task force is also attempting to implement some of the recommendations from previous legislative study committees that focused on the issue. Its partnership with the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission to educate the Indigenous communities about victim compensation stemmed from one of the recommendations.
The task force is required to provide the governor with a report detailing its progress each year. Arizona Luminaria has reviewed its most recent report, which sheds light on its work throughout 2024.
Here are some of the biggest takeaways:
Statewide education about victim compensation
The task force teamed up with the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission’s Crime Victims Program to improve people’s understanding of the financial assistance they can receive if they’ve been affected by a crime.
The group helped host presentations across the state — with a particular focus on tribal communities — about how victims of crime, their families and survivors of missing persons can obtain victim compensation. Victim compensation is financial assistance to help cover costs associated with medical bills, counseling, funeral costs and other expenses incurred because of a crime.
There were a total of four presentations held in the latter part of the year in Flagstaff, Parker, San Carlos and Pascua Yaqui Nation, the report shows.
Law enforcement training
The task force’s Judicial Working Group is working with the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board to develop a training program for police officers. The program aims to educate officers about the complexities of tribal jurisdiction and the importance of communicating with tribal agencies while investigating MMIP cases.
The group plans to present an outline of the curriculum early this year.
AZPOST personnel will then help design a training calendar with the anticipation that it will become widely available by May 5, the National Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s Awareness Day.
Addressing sober living homes
The task force’s Health Working Group focused on monitoring and addressing a sober-living-home scandal, in which hundreds of facilities failed to provide promised substance abuse treatment and instead defrauded the state’s Medicaid program. Many Indigenous people were targeted in the scam.
“The impact of the crisis is multifaceted and far-reaching, especially among Arizona’s most vulnerable populations such as individuals who are experiencing homelessness, substance abuse and trauma,” the report says.
The report notes that while the group faced challenges related to a high turnover of members and lack of participation in meetings throughout the year, it had actively monitored the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System’s, AHCCCS, efforts to address the sober-living-home scandal, especially its response to meeting victims’ needs for lodging, meals, transportation and case management. It was not immediately clear how often the groups, or the task force as a whole, met.
The group plans to continue working with AHCCCS on potential solutions, as well as identify and support legislative bills to help prevent further abuses and fraud. Both the Health and Tribal working groups also plan to hold a Tribal Leader Engagement and Listening Session to better understand the experiences of sober living victims along with MMIP victims.
Support for Missing and Endangered Persons alert code
The task force was asked to support Native Public Media’s effort to establish a new Missing and Endangered Persons event code, also called a MEP event code. The code would be used to alert the public through the Emergency Alert System about missing and endangered people, including anyone who doesn’t qualify for AMBER Alerts, according to a news release from Native Public Media, a Flagstaff-based nonprofit that provides media services to Indigenous people.
“The introduction of the MEP event code is a significant step towards ensuring the safety and well-being of all community members,” said Loris Taylor, president and CEO of Native Public Media, in the news release. “This initiative is particularly crucial for Tribal communities, where the disproportionate rates of violence and disappearances among Native and Indigenous peoples have long been a concern.”
The Federal Communications Commission approved the event code in August, and the task force said it would continue to help support its implementation in Arizona.
Strengthening national collaboration
The task force organized and hosted a National MMIP Coordinator Gathering in October. For the first time ever in the U.S., the event brought together coordinators, advocates and officials from across the country who are working to address the ongoing injustice of Indigenous people who are missing or have been murdered.
During the two-day event at the Arizona Capitol, attendees exchanged information, addressed common challenges and brainstormed possible solutions. Imus-Nahsonhoya told Arizona Luminaria at the gathering that the idea for the event stemmed from quarterly meetings she initiated with other MMIP coordinators.
“The bigger goal and why we’re here is I’d like all of us as national coordinators to be action-oriented and by the end of these two days have a plan that we share with Gov. Katie Hobbs and my dream is that we go to Congress,” she said at the time. “We’ve been hearing Senate hearings, congressional hearings on this issue but I have not heard that boots on the ground of us coordinators and our challenges, our successes and what we’ve created to help our families and our communities.”
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