Native advocates in Minnesota hope that a FBI initiative will help solve more crimes in Indian Country in the face of disproportionate crime rates and the disappearance of hundreds of Indigenous community members.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced last week that the FBI will send staff to investigate unsolved crimes affecting Indigenous Minnesotans, including missing persons and murder cases. Sixty people will serve 90-day rotations over a six-month period in Minnesota and nine other states. The operation is the most substantial use of FBI resources to target crime in Indian Country, according to the department.
Advocates who work with Native Minnesotans impacted by crime say the resources are vitally needed. However, the length of the rotations prompts some concern, said Nicole Matthews, the chief executive officer of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition. The FBI needs to take the time to build relationships and trust with tribes, and to understand the cases they’re trying to solve, she said. There are 11 Tribal Nations in Minnesota, which are sovereign nations.
“I’m really curious to hear what that’s going to look like, and I really hope that they will reach out to programs like ours,” Matthews said.
The FBI declined to comment on the initiative.
The boost in FBI resources is part of Operation Not Forgotten, an initiative that has helped investigate more than 500 cases in the past two years, according to the Department of Justice. The FBI will work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and local Tribal law enforcement.
Indigenous people across the country face disproportionate rates of violent crimes such as murder, assault and abduction. More than 700 Indigenous people went missing in Minnesota last year, according to the state’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives office (MMIR).
While Indigenous women and girls make up less than 1% of the state’s population, they accounted for more than 10% of missing women reported in 2024. Indigenous people make up 1.4% of all Minnesotans, but accounted for more than 4% of homicides last year.
“That can’t be what we accept,” said Ana Negrete, the interim director of the MMIR office.
The MMIR office was established in 2021, and is the first of its kind in the country dedicated to the issue. Negrete said the office needs any help it can get.
“We’re an office of four staff, and we have statewide jurisdiction, and so we need all the support that we can get,” Negrete said. “And so if the FBI is going to be dedicating resources, we’re excited to have that.”
Negrete has not heard from the FBI yet, but hopes they will partner with her office in their new endeavor.
Minnesota’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force issued a report to the Legislature in 2020 which called for establishing the MMIR. The report also said that root causes such as colonization, historical trauma and racism have led to Native communities being disproportionately impacted by crime.
Systemic risk factors such as homelessness, poverty and contact with the child welfare system also make them more vulnerable, the report said.
“I think we have to look at some of those risk factors … and how that becomes a pipeline to being exploited and harmed even more,” said Matthews, who co-chaired the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force.
Negrete said some people may not report crimes due to a lack of trust with law enforcement.
“We’re the state where George Floyd’s murder happened,” she said, referring to the 2020 murder of Floyd, a Black man, by Minneapolis police. “It’s not just a mistrust with one community, it’s communities at large.”
