Tribal leaders, LA law enforcement, victims, lawmakers join to stem violence against Native Americans in Los Angeles county

Today tribal leaders, victims, local law enforcement and lawmakers gathered today to learn how the a new tool – the Feather Alert – will work to help law enforcement quickly notify the public about missing Native Americans and enlist their aid. The law, AB 1314, took effect in January and was authored by Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-San Bernardino), the first and only California Native American elected to the legislature.

The Feather Alert is similar to the AMBER and Silver alert systems which notify the public about missing children and when elderly, developmentally, or cognitively-impaired persons are missing.

Ramos and representatives from the California Highway Patrol, the Department of Justice and local and tribal law enforcement participated in a roundtable discussion at the Los Angeles County Office of Education about when and how the alert is activated. Ramos has conducted three other such gatherings in Madera, San Bernardino and Mendocino counties.

Ramos said, “A common misconception is that most Native Americans live on reservations, but more than 70 percent of them live in urban areas. Close to 328,000 Native Americans live in the Los Angeles area. It has the greatest number of Native Americans in the state and the greatest number in any county in the United States according to the LA Native American Indian Commission.”

The lawmaker added that the between 1999 and 2019, homicide was the third-leading cause of death among American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls. On reservations, the homicide rate for Native American women is 10 times the national average. “These Feather Alert roundtables help to ensure that law enforcement and tribal communities know about this new tool so we can change the shameful statistics,” Ramos said.

“It gets too easy to cite these staggering statistics,” Ramos said. “The Feather Alert will aid law enforcement and families in getting the word out quickly when a Native individual is missing or endangered by alerting the public in a broad and effective manner. Colorado and Washington State also approved similar alerts last year. Creating an alert or advisory system was a top recommendation from tribal leaders for dealing with the disproportionate number of missing Native Americans, particularly women and girls.” Ramos also noted that California, the state with the greatest population of Native Americans in the nation, is also among the states with the highest rates of reported cases of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.

Ramos observed that Northern California has been hard hit in cases of missing Indigenous people. In April, the Round Valley Indian Tribes in the Mendocino area declared a State of Emergency after two of their members were found murdered. The Yurok Tribe, in the Humboldt region issued a similar declaration last year.

Feather Alert Criteria

To activate the Feather Alert, the following criteria that must be met:

• Missing person is an indigenous woman or an indigenous person.
• Investigating law enforcement agency has utilized available local and tribal resources.
• Local law enforcement agency determines that the person has gone missing under unexplained or suspicious circumstance.
• Local law enforcement agency believes that the person is in danger because of age, health, mental or physical disability, or environment or weather conditions, that the person is in the company of a potentially dangerous person, or that there are other factors indicating that the person may be in peril.
• Information is available that, if disseminated to the public, could assist in the safe recovery of the missing person.

Other California Public Alert Systems

In California, the Feather Alert joins these other special notifications overseen by the CHP:

• The AMBER Alert, which stands for America’s Missing Broadcast Emergency Response is used when children age 17 or younger have been abducted. It has been in use since 2002.
• The Blue Alert, approved in 2011, notifies the public when a suspect in the assault or killing of a police officer remains at large and the search is active.
• The Silver Alert, used when elderly, developmentally or cognitively-impaired persons are missing and are determined to be at-risk. Adopted as the top priority of the California Senior Legislature in October 2011, it was enacted through SB 1047, legislation introduced by state Sen. Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) and Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana). The bill was approved in 2012 and went into effect in 2013.
• The general endangered missing advisory is used when an individual is missing under unexplained or suspicious, and is believed to be in danger due to issues with age, physical and mental health issues, weather, being with a potentially dangerous person or other circumstances.

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Assemblymember James C. Ramos proudly represents the 45th Assembly district which includes the Cities of Fontana, Highland, Mentone, Redlands, Rialto and San Bernardino. He is the first and only California Native American serving in the state’s legislature. Ramos chairs the Assembly Committees on Rules.