Don Hendrick named to Commission on missing and murdered indigenous people
Don Hendrick named to Commission on missing and murdered indigenous people
By Joseph Budd
Native Sun News Today Staff Writer
“A lack of urgency, transparency, and coordination has hampered our country’s efforts to combat violence against American Indian and Alaska Native people,” reads a statement from U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
And the U.S. is fighting back. Signed into law, the Not Invisible Act was signed into law, in October 2020, and in its wake comes a new commission to address the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous people. Based off the numbers, from a report at the National Institute of Justice, 84.3% of Indigenous women have experienced violence in their lifetime. More than half, of Indigenous women have experienced sexual violence (56.1%).
A release from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows that murder is the third leading cause of death for Indigenous women, and the murder rate for Indigenous women, is three times higher than that of Caucasian women.
To field this commission, a number of folks will be tasked with working to help resolve these issues, and one local police chief was named to the commission, Don Hedrick. Along with tribal leaders, federal partners and additional law enforcement personnel, Chief Hedrick had this to say:
“What we are really trying to accomplish, from what I’ve read so far, is really trying to find and identify best practices for agencies and entities that are working with our Native American population.”
The announcement came mid-afternoon Friday, following the National Day of Awareness proclaimed by President Joe Biden. The commission will meet over 18 months, addressing everything from coordination of resources to the accurate reporting of statistics.
Chief Hedrick says Rapid City has a great number of community partners that work together to locate missing persons, not putting the responsibility solely on police.
“Every community has its own unique challenges and I think that it’s important that we remember that being part of a large national commission, what working in one part of the country might not works here in Rapid City, because we have our own unique issues,” Check Hedrick says. “I think there are folks across the country that can learn from what we’re doing here locally.”
He’s going in open-minded and ready to learn, and even secured support from the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s Chief of Police to serve on the commission.
What does he hope to gain? “I think just learning what’s going on in other parts of the country, what other people are doing to address issues,” Hedrick said, “I’m hoping that we can identify best practices [and] things that are working well.”
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May 18, 2022