Agencies work to increase attention on cases of missing or murdered Native Americans

By Marissa Gonzalez
Capital News Service

LANSING — The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs estimates there are 4,200 unsolved cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people nationally. 

Michigan advocates and tribal law enforcement officials say the issue needs more attention.

Michigan is home to 12 federally recognized Indigenous tribes. According to the World Population Review, the Native American and Indigenous population in the state is estimated at 0.46%. 

In the event that an Indigenous person goes missing, some tribes have tribal-wide response plans, according to Terrence McDonnell, the chief of police for the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians in Harbor Springs.

“It incorporates not only the law enforcement aspect but the human services for victims and survivors. It has very encompassing readiness programs in case something does happen,” McDonnell said.

He said that it’s a serious and growing problem and that law enforcement agencies are trying to prepare for such situations in case they occur to tribe members.

The state Attorney General’s Office recently organized the annual Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Summit in Traverse City.

According to McDonnell, most of the tribes had representatives there from law enforcement and human services areas. The federal and state governments were represented as well. 

It drew a large cross-section of people who got together and shared ideas and stories to work out the best practices, he said.

The Attorney General’s Office and the federal government have been working to better address the issue for years now, McDonnell said.

“They have two federal officers assigned between the tribes who are based in the tribal police department in Mount Pleasant,” he said. 

Historically, Indigenous missing and murder cases have not gotten much recognition and were underreported.

From a nationwide perspective, one reason for so many unsolved cases is because a lot of tribal areas in the country don’t have the resources and manpower to fully dedicate time to the case, according to Ronald Carrick, chief of police for the Bay Mills Police Department in Brimley.

He said that Savanna’s Act, a federal law signed in 2020, started the efforts to refine the federal response to missing and murdered Indigenous people.

Savanna was a 22-year-old member of the Spirit Lake Tribe in North Dakota who was murdered in 2017. It took law enforcement officers eight days to find her body.

The law addresses the increase in the missing and murder cases and the need to improve the guidelines of investigation in such situations.

However, underreporting of cases is still a serious problem, Carrick said.

“In a lot of Indian communities, bad news doesn’t hit the public. Look at all the Native Americans across the country that go missing and we don’t hear anything about it.” Carrick said.

The Bay Mills Indian Community is one of the tribes with a missing and murdered Indigenous person case this year.

Druid Lake Warner, a 21-year-old tribal citizen, was found dead in June at Naomikong Point, in Bay Mills.

According to a Facebook post by the Bay Mills Police Department, officers started searching for him as soon as he was reported missing.

The cause of death is unknown and under investigation, the post said.

What about Ottawa County?

While official police records in Ottawa County do not list any unsolved homicides or cold cases involving Indigenous victims, tribal leaders and advocates caution that the absence of data does not necessarily mean an absence of tragedy.

Across West Michigan, structural hurdles — ranging from database errors to jurisdictional borders — have long obscured the true scope of missing and murdered Indigenous persons.

Historically, systemic misclassification has erased Native identities from official records. In nationwide databases like NamUs and the National Crime Information Center, law enforcement officers routinely mislabeled Indigenous victims as White, Hispanic, or of unknown race. As a result, cases that might otherwise point to missing Native community members are buried beneath inaccurate paperwork, leaving families without answers and investigations stalled before they begin.

The challenge is further compounded by administrative boundaries. Because Ottawa County lacks federally recognized tribal reservation land, local law enforcement operates entirely within county and municipal frameworks, insulated from tribal police databases. When Indigenous individuals go missing across county lines or move between regional communities, their cases risk falling through the administrative cracks, never registering on local cold case logs.

In response to these historical gaps, state and tribal officials are working to rewrite how these cases are handled. The Michigan Department of Attorney General established a dedicated Missing or Murdered Indigenous People Task Force, bringing together federal agents, state police, and leaders from local tribal nations — including the Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians.

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