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APRIL 15, 2021
7
When life gives you lemons …
Contributed photo
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the formation of a new
Missing & Murdered Unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice
Services in early April.
Photos by Timothy J. Gonzalez
Tribal youth Kalea Liebelt, 9, delivers a cup of lemonade to Early
Childhood Education Program Manager Angie Blackwell in Tribal
Housing on Wednesday, March 31. It was the third time that Liebelt has
offered lemonade since mid-March. While the goal of the stand is to
earn money, she has also reinvested some of the funds to purchase a
new table, jug and cups.
New BIA unit will assist
with investigating missing,
murdered Indigenous cases
By Danielle Harrison
Smoke Signals staff writer
Tribal youths Owen Campbell, 11, and Kalea Liebelt, 9, help a customer
at the lemonade stand Liebelt set up in Tribal Housing on Wednesday,
March 31.
May
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secre-
tary of the Interior Deb Haaland
(Laguna Pueblo Nation) announced
the formation of a new Missing &
Murdered Unit within the Bureau
of Indian Affairs Office of Justice
Services.
According to a press release, the
new unit will provide leadership and
direction for cross-departmental and
interagency work involving missing
and murdered Native Americans
and Alaska Natives, helping to put
the full weight of the federal govern-
ment into investigating these cases
and include federal law enforce-
ment resources across agencies and
throughout Indian Country.
“Violence against Indigenous
peoples is a crisis that has been
underfunded for decades,” Haa-
land said. “Far too often, murders
and missing person’s cases in In-
dian Country go unsolved and
unaddressed, leaving families and
communities devastated. The new
MMU unit will provide the resourc-
es and leadership to prioritize these
cases and coordinate resources to
hold people accountable, keep our
communities safe and provide clo-
sure for families.”
Haaland, a former New Mexico
congresswoman, became the first
Native American Cabinet member
in the history of the country in mid-
March after being confirmed by the
U.S. Senate and sworn in by Vice
President Kamala Harris.
Approximately 1,500 Native
American and Alaska Native miss-
ing persons have been entered into
the National Crime Information
Center, and approximately 2,700
cases of murder and nonnegligent
homicide have been reported to
the federal government’s Uniform
Crime Reporting program.
To help address these unresolved
cases, Operation Lady Justice — a
task force on Missing and Murdered
American Indians and Alaska Na-
tives — was formed in 2019. The
new unit will build on that work
by designating new leadership and
support positions.
Investigations often remain un-
solved due to a lack of investigative
resources available to identify new
information from witness testimo-
ny, re-examine new or retained
material evidence, and review fresh
activities of suspects.
The Missing and Murdered Unit,
in addition to reviewing unsolved
cases, will immediately begin work-
ing with Tribal, BIA and FBI inves-
tigators on active cases. It also will
enable the department to expand
its collaborative efforts with other
agencies.
“Whether it’s a missing family
member or a homicide investi-
gation, these efforts will be all
hands-on deck,” Haaland said. “We
are fully committed to assisting
Tribal communities with these
investigations, and the MMU will
leverage every resource available to
be a force-multiplier in preventing
these cases from becoming cold case
investigations.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the
District of Oregon released its own
Missing and Murdered Indigenous
Persons report on Feb. 19, the first
of its kind released by any U.S.
Attorney’s Office since Operation
Lady Justice was launched.
The Oregon report provides
Tribes, law enforcement and the
public with an overview of current
cases as well as the Attorney’s
Office plans to address the crisis
in 2021.
The report includes summaries
of eight murdered and 11 missing
Indigenous people, including Grand
Ronde Tribal member Heather
Cameron, who has been missing
since Aug. 18, 2012, from a remote
area near of Redding, Calif. 
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