Unseen: A California Crisis - Elizabeth Cook reports on California's missing indigenous women

missing and murdered indigenous women their cases never solved in Northern California's most rustic landscape behind this Redwood curtain lies a dark and devastating mystery got a phone call one day that my daughter was missing Mothers Daughters and sisters all Vanishing Into Thin Air it's not safe I could disappear and nobody would know resources are scarce she was worthy of a search this is still worthy the tribe has essentially been told well you can't have jurisdiction for certain things the counties in charge of that but we're not going to give the county any extra money we explore California's dark past that makes these tribal communities so vulnerable You're looking at the massacres of which there were a number you're looking at boarding schools and you're looking at indentured slaves and a look at the efforts to write those ROMs starting with an entirely new Justice System fought for me if they didn't I would end up in prison again I'm Elizabeth Cook we're shedding light on an unseen crisis here in California the growing number of missing and murdered indigenous women our state has the largest Native American population in the United States but women living on these tribal lands are especially vulnerable 84 percent of them experience some form of violence and are 10 times more likely to be murdered and because there's no database for these types of cases there's no accurate count on just how many women have vanished among the missing Emily rizzling she vanished from the Year rock reservation in Northern California and a little-known federal law may actually be hindering the investigation into her case and many others alongside the Klamath river near the side of a road there's a weather beaten flyer on it the face of an indigenous woman 33 year old Emily risling she's been missing for more than a year I think the most heartbreaking thing is that you just may never see that person's face get this she had everything going for her in the right direction and and things started falling apart Emily's parents Gary and Judy are heartbroken their daughter vanished Into Thin Air her case is growing cold it's really simple we want to know what happened where she is what we do know yeah hi as a child Emily was a ray of light full of joy so much love so much potential from an early age she embraced her native identity she loved her culture she loved her family the straight A student had lots of friends and went to college on a scholarship then her world began to crumble a boyfriend violently abused her she began to use drugs and so this young woman who was so bright so capable so you know the world was her oyster she kind of became a different person her parents told me after the birth of her second child Emily developed postpartum psychosis she was arrested for igniting a fire in a cemetery and put in jail her parents hoped she would finally be forced into treatment the DA's office her family all were against letting her out and they did a few days later everything changed so give us some perspective of where we are so we're on 169 at pick one bridge and this bridge is the last confirmed place that we know Emily was at Greg O'Rourke is police chief of the yurok tribe the bridge is on yurok land more than two hours from Emily's home he believes she got here by hitchhiking here on the bridge is where we can confirm multiple Witnesses but if a major crime involving Emily occurred here or anywhere else on tribal lands in California the tribe has no jurisdiction to investigate it so who's in charge when someone is murdered or goes missing on tribal land the answer to that involves a dark chapter in federal Indian policy it's known as public law 280. so it's taken away a tribe's ability or at least in theory you know their their sovereignty to be able to have their own people have their own law enforcement and investigate crimes on the reservation and put that onto the state Congress passed the law in 1953 without the consent of tribes it greatly enlarged the power of certain States including California to handle Major Crimes on Indian reservations but with no additional funding the sheriff's office has jurisdiction on tribal land and so you're having government come in and telling a Sovereign Nation of what crimes that we're going to enforce on their land this is our booking area William Hansel is Sheriff of Humboldt County he sees this law as a roadblock to solving cases when there's no trust in involved oftentimes we can't even get our foot in the door to have an interview that said Emily's Family is angry they feel law enforcement has given up you guys have been accused of not doing enough and you've got the money you've got the resources where are you when it comes to these cases yeah so I think a lot of things have changed over the years because a lot of times I think where there's jurisdictional boundaries a lot of times there was finger-pointing who's investigate this who's going to follow up with this both the sheriff and local tribes are dealing with the lack of money and Manpower in a county the size of Connecticut that's home to 11 tribes it's also Way Off the Grid it's an extremely remote area you know when people talk about rural then there's us the yurok reservation itself is 85 square miles easy to see how Emily could just disappear I think the system failed Emily all along all Judy and Gary have left are memories birthdays holidays and her smiling face Emily's son their grandson David wants to know can you take me Grandpa go down and look for my mom and if we can find her we'll find her and looks at me and he goes well what happens if we can't find her I said David would just keep looking just this year California's feather alert was implemented to help bring women like Emily home it works a little bit like our Amber Alert System where the CHP will put out immediate information about a missing indigenous person if all available tribal resources have been exhausted so why are these women so vulnerable well to understand that we may have to look to California's brutal treatment of indigenous tribes in the past one example children taken from their parents and sent off to boarding schools here's a picture from 1881 of a group of newly arrived children seven months later another photo with all signs of their native culture erased coming up after the break how the trauma of the past is still felt in indigenous communities things happen to us as a result of an invasion and a lot of bad behavior and we took on some of that behavior [Music]

Channel: KPIX | CBS NEWS BAY AREA

Views: 1,786

Keywords:

Id: tgnADLhgXw8

Length: 7min 43sec (463 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2023