A new unit aimed at solving cold cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people will be established in Washington state, a result of the latest law to address a decades-long crisis.
House Bill 1177 was recommended by a state task force, passed unanimously in the Legislature and was signed last week by Gov. Jay Inslee.
The state’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & People Task Force, created to assess systemic causes behind the high rate of disappearances and murders of indigenous women and people, recommended the legislation. Since launching last July, the alert system has been activated more than 50 times, with 43 people found alive. In at least 11 cases, the alert helped law enforcement agencies find the missing person, according to the Washington State Patrol.
Washington has one of the highest number of cases of missing or murdered Native American women and girls in the country, according to a 2018 report by the Urban Indian Health Institute.
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