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People come to Oklahoma for many reasons.

Olivia Gray, however, believes one thing about why Oklahoma attracts certain kinds of people.

“Predators seek out Indian Country because they know they are way more likely to get away with beating us, raping us, kidnapping us, trafficking us and killing us because everybody else is just too preoccupied and arguing over jurisdiction ... instead of all working together,” Gray said.

Gray, president of Northeastern Oklahoma Indigenous Safety and Education, and other advocates are attempting to tackle Oklahoma's underreported crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people.

The hunt to solve cases has grown more complicated and confusing due to a 2020 landmark Supreme Court ruling.

To Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., increased rates of violence and homicides and the number of missing persons reported are no coincidence.

“This is a consequence; this is not an accident,” Hoskin said. “This is not because it's inherently likely that a Native woman goes missing more or she just gets raped more or she gets murdered more.

“It's because of the consequence of federal Indian policy. If we lose sight of that — if we simply blame the fact that there is this complex system of justice in this country or that we just need to apply some more resources — I think we will get short shrift to what has been centuries of neglect and oppression and dispossession.”

Following McGirt v. Oklahoma, tribal nations gained sovereignty over the power to investigate and prosecute cases involving citizens of tribal nations. The ruling, however, has led to jurisdictional battles over cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people in the heart of Indian Country.

Indian Country is a legal term referring to all land within the limits of any reservation recognized by the U.S.

Indigenous people in the U.S. are more likely to be murdered or go missing than any other demographic. In Oklahoma, those statistics are even worse.

Oklahoma has the third-largest American Indian and Alaska Native population in the country — falling behind only California and Texas — and roughly the seventh-highest rate of reported and active missing Indigenous people cases: 12.9 per 100,000 as of June 30. California's and Texas’ rates don’t crack the top 20.

NamUs, a national database containing reported and active missing persons cases, recorded 82 missing Indigenous people in Oklahoma as of June 30.

Oklahoma also had 373 Indigenous children go missing between 2012 and 2021, the second-highest number reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Across the country, Indigenous people are also victims of violence and murder at higher rates than other demographics.

Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native women experienced the second-highest rate of homicide, according to a 2020 Centers for Disease Control study. The study found homicide was a top-10 leading cause of death for Indigenous women ages 1-45.

The statistics show an Indigenous woman living on a reservation is more likely to die by homicide than car crash, Gray said.

Four in five Indigenous women, well over 1.5 million individuals, experience violence in their lifetimes, according to a study by the National Institute of Justice. About 50% of Indigenous women experience sexual violence in their lifetime.

Indigenous men also report high rates of violence, with non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native men having the second-highest rate of homicide compared with males in all other racial and ethnic groups.

Statistics on missing and murdered Indigenous people are widely understood to fall well short of the reality, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the FBI.

Nobody knows the real numbers because the inclusion of tribal affiliations was not offered or required on many databases like NamUs until recent years. Denoting a person’s tribal relation is also not always required, so many Indigenous people are identified as other races or ethnic groups.

Underreporting happens due to miscategorizing by law enforcement, lack of instruction to families and lack of trust between Indigenous people and some law enforcement agencies. Some advocates attribute the underreporting to law enforcement confusion since the McGirt decision in 2020.

Tired of seeing cases ignored and unsolved, advocates started combating the MMIP crisis themselves, contacting lawmakers and tribal governments to help fix jurisdictional conflict, garner additional resources and protect Indigenous people in Oklahoma.

Emily Morgan, Teedeenae Jackson Yearby, Molly Miller, Sharon Walters and Addison Reese are all victims of the MMIP epidemic in the state. Their families, advocates, tribal governments and investigators are pushing for change and searching for justice.

Despite their efforts, advocates like Gray watch as the epidemic continues in Oklahoma.

“These parents are mourning their children. Children are mourning their parents. The people that are mourning want some justice,” Gray said. “There's no accountability. Yet we keep dying.”

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