Interim legislative study looks at high rate of murdered, missing Indigenous women

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OKLAHOMA CITY — Angelina Steinmeyer did not want to testify before the Oklahoma House of Representatives’ Government Efficiency Committee Tuesday morning.

A citizen of the Comanche Nation and a former Junior Miss Indian Oklahoma, Steinmeyer stood before the committee to lay out in personal terms the impact of the high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women both in Oklahoma and nationwide as part of an interim legislative studyrequestedbyRep.Mickey Dollens (D-Oklahoma City).

In January 2017, Steinmeyer’s aunt, Ci’Lina Bell-Deloney, was shot four times and her body dumped along Paint Road just outside of Lawton. To date, no arrests have been made in connection with her death, but her family has continued to talk about her to anyone who will listen.

“I have a black belt and a yellow belt ... because I’m terrified that will happen to me one day,” Steinmeyer said, her voice shaking. “I’m 16 and having to tell all of you in this room that she was murdered. I shouldn’t have to keep doing this, but I am doing this because nothing is being done.”

Nationally, homicide is the third leading cause of death among Native American women, trailing only cancer and heart disease. In 2016 alone, more than 5,700 cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls were reported to the National Crime Information Center.

A 2018 study published by the Seattle Indian Health Board’s Urban Indian Health Institute ranked Oklahoma 10th nationally for the number of cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women, but also acknowledged that due to the dearth of data, the numbers are “likely an undercount.”

According to data from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, more than half of all Native women nationally are subjected to physical intimate partner violence at some point in their lives and one-fifth have been stalked. Native women are also subjected to higher rates of interracial violence than other groups, with an estimated two-thirds of the sexual assaults against Native women committed by non-Native men.

“Native American women are the only racial group who are assaulted by people from groups other than their own,” Oklahoma City based private investigator and Caddo Nation citizen Darcie Parton-Scoon said. “This is what makes it so difficult: our abusers aren’t in our own communities.”

Tuesday’s emotional three- hour session was part of an effort to develop a bill to address the gap during the legislature’s upcoming session. Along with Parton-Scoon, representatives from five victims’ families and domestic violence advocates laid out their experiences and concerns.

Many of the witnesses pleaded with the committee to allocate more funding to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations to allow bring on more investigators that could help with search efforts.

Several victims’ families told legislators that they were brushed aside by local law enforcement departments when they brought leads forward about their loved ones’ cases or asked about search efforts. No arrests have been made in connection with any of the cases presented Tuesday. “They don’t respect us,” Steinmeyer said. “They don’t care about us.”