Red Alert

The MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women) movement is a response to an epidemic: Native women going missing and/or being murdered. For many families, closure never comes. While this is a major problem in the United States, this is an issue affecting Indigenous communities globally.

According to the Urban Indian Health Institute, 506 MMIWG cases were identified across just 71 selected urban cities. 128 of those cases were of missing Indigenous women, 280 were cases of murdered Indigenous women, and 98 cases had an "unknown status".

This epidemic does not just affect women and girls, though. Native men and two-spirit individuals go missing and are often overlooked. But missing Natives are not just overlooked by the general public. When a Native woman goes missing, families are often told by police that they have to wait before filing a missing persons report. (Yes, we know this is not true, but my firsthand experience is that it happens regardless.) Unfortunately, a report number and quick response are crucial to the search.

These things are complicated and can circle around. Without a police report number, families are left putting personal phone numbers on fliers. Already vulnerable people are then targeted further, something the FBI has also warned about. Law enforcement and private investigators will tell you that the first 48 hours a person is missing are the most critical. Sadly, when it comes to Amber Alerts and similar, public desensitization is a worry, so the urgency of missing persons cases is rated on a priority scale. (Source)

Families and communities are often the first line of defense when an American Indian or Alaska Native person goes missing. This community-based approach is why there are so many MMIW groups across the U.S. Thanks to these groups, many families are reunited, or at least, given closure.

Circle back to the statistics and then multiply. If 506 women or girls go missing, how many of them have parents? Siblings? Partners? Children of their own? It is not just 506 people affected. It is a family of 4 living in a multi-generational home with their sister and her kids. It is a single woman who cooks for the Elders in her neighborhood. It is your mother, your sister, your wife, her daughter, her friend, her teacher.

Red Alert is an app named after the major hashtag NOISE uses on our missing persons fliers and posts. A few years ago after hearing about more disappointing interactions families had when searching for their loved ones, I had an idea to use technology similar to Snapchat's Snap Map to make the process easier for organizations and keep families in the loop 100% of the way.

This app will use email-verified accounts where all users will be vetted and a public map. Families, organizations, or law enforcement can list a missing person and enter all relevant information (name, age, birthday, physical description, last known location, etc.) along with a photo and any law enforcement agencies people should contact.

Red Alert will also walk families through the process of gathering information with pre-designated fields so that they do not forget to include simple information like eye color in the stress of their situation. A field for more information will be included, and they will be able to privately submit social media and other digital contact information to relevant organizations for social media deep dives.

Instead of posting a comment to a Facebook post of a flier or calling a police department to report a sighting, the public can use geo-tagging to log where they have seen a missing person (or anyone a missing person is believed to be with). Users will also be able to attach any photo or video evidence.

This will help the search efforts of any involved grassroots organizations and law enforcement and keep families in the loop. Another benefit is in the case of runaway children because you do not always know if they have run away or are missing.

Once a missing person is found or, Creator forbid, recovered, data will be removed from public view but saved for relevant organizations to store in their archives.

*Users will be reminded that Red Alert is not meant to replace police reporting and all missing persons should be reported to the relevant local authorities, as should any sightings or relevant information the public may have.

Oklahoma will be the first state where Red Alert is available as the app is tested and fine-tuned to public needs. There are 38 tribes that call these lands their home, including:

• Absentee Shawnee
• Alabama Quassarte
• Apache
• Caddo
• Cherokee
• Cheyenne & Arapaho
• Chickasaw
• Choctaw
• Citizen Potawatomi
• Comanche
• Delaware Nation
• Delaware Tribe of Indians
• Eastern Shawnee
• Fort Sill Apache
• Iowa
• Kaw
• Kialegee
• Kickapoo
• Kiowa
• Miami
• Modoc
• Mvskoke (Creek)
• Osage
• Otoe-Missouria
• Ottawa
• Pawnee
• Peoria
• Ponca
• Quapaw
• Sac & Fox
• Seminole
• Shawnee
• Thlopthlocco
• Tonkawa
• United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees
• Wichita
• Wyandotte
• Euchee (Yuchi)

While these 38 tribes can experience direct benefits, as a former Indian healthcare worker, I know one facility of the many here serviced members from 91 total tribes so the benefits will reach beyond those that have territories and reservations here.

After piloting the app, Native Americans residing in the U.S. will be the next to benefit from Red Alert. While I would like to see this app accessible to anyone in need globally, I am not positioned to deliver that at this time. I do expect to be able to offer the use of this app to Indigenous communities north of the medicine border in Canada within the first three years of operation, however.

For now, starting at the national level will be a huge help to those whose loved ones have been spotted out of state and to organizations working across larger geographic areas.

Oklahoma itself is a complicated area with city and county police departments as well as tribal police departments. Many are cross-deputized but there are still instances in which one agency will tell you to contact another and that agency will tell you to contact the original agency, wasting precious search time and frustrating already frustrated and scared families.

Red Alert will allow these families to find some peace of mind knowing that they have compiled as much information as they can and now have public eyes on their situation.

To reiterate, Red Alert will serve Indigenous people in Oklahoma to start out while expanding to those nationwide. These people are friends, like Kim Merryman, mother of Emily Morgan.

She left behind a young son, and community that loves her. Her mother asks that you do not forget her name and story. Her 24 year old friend Totinika Elix was also murdered that night. Elix was a Black woman who grew up in the heart of Indian Country.

These people are also strangers, like Edith Still Smoking, daughter of Wesley Still Smoking.

His remains were not recovered until earlier this year, in Mayes County. I was asked to walk in Still Smoking's memory in 2021 ago at the State Capitol during MMIW Day. It was an honor to be a voice for Edith and her father Wesley that day. Please remember his name.

In order to engage my community while developing this solution, I plan to use surveys. First, I will survey the organizations taking these cases to meet the needs of those who are doing the work. Many of those involved are families who have lived these painful stories. Second, I will survey the public. What do they think of the solution? Are there any features they would like to see; why?

My name is Bridgette Hoshont'omba and I am a member of NOISE (Northeastern Oklahoma Indigenous Safety & Education). In 2020, I created artwork to be used on a support flier for one the court dates concerning Emily Morgan's case. And then I created a missing persons flier. This started because the founder, Olivia Gray, needed these things and her daughter mentioned that she knew someone on Twitter that could do them.

I saw the need, and I responded.

This Solution is being submitted independently of my organization, as our board members are constantly busy taking cases and cannot defer their time to something that might not pan out on my behalf. While this Solution can ultimately be a great asset for many of us, the time spent on this can be the difference between pitching the solution and doing someone's intake.

My responsibility at NOISE is to get fliers made and get them out to the public. I also run the Instagram account. Not only am I a citizen of the Choctaw Nation, but I am here working in the community for the community whether that is taking a 2am call for a flier or working on the road through my phone. At NOISE, we do not just see that someone is missing and make a flier – these families come to us or are referred to us by other organizations because they need the help.

For me personally, my work does not stop at NOISE. There are rare occasions when I will aid others in making a flier, and last year I actually had someone come to me with a case that crossed borders.

A woman from Hawaii was visiting family in Kansas when she went missing, and her family in Oklahoma did not know what to do but someone remembered my work with NOISE. Because this was outside of our boundaries, I did a proper intake and got a flier out that did not have personal family information or reward information on it. An MMIW organization in Kansas saw this and took over the case and the woman was located safely.

Because of the work that I do and the Solution I have been developing, I think I am very well-positioned to implement Red Alert on the local level before scaling up.

As an individual volunteering with a grassroots organization, there are a lot of barriers to bringing something like Red Alert to life.

1. I will need funding from start to finish. My main concerns are registering the app – something that costs $99 annually on the Apple App Store alone – and hiring someone to bring it to life since I am hardly what you would call a coder.
2. Speaking of coders, technical assistance will be needed to ensure that the components of the app run smoothly once launched. 
3. I will need legal assistance to ensure proper trademarks are held if needed and digital law is followed. The last thing I want is for this app to put people at risk or impede law enforcement from finding someone.

As someone who is often called the "NDN backyard lawyer" and the like, I am not a professional in any area. I would like to find partners to help create Red Alert and establish it in the digital market as an app by and for Native communities.

To me, this looks like building a team outside of myself and outside of NOISE that can speak to the legalities of this Solution, design and code what I envision, and help launch it to the proper target audience once the time comes. Of course I can contact all 38 tribes in Oklahoma and law enforcement in every tribe, city, and county but this may be a little harder to get out there once Red Alert scales up to the national level or beyond.

As mentioned in the answer to How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?, I am Choctaw and already working directly with the community at this time.

There are 574 federally recognized tribes in the U.S., 38 of which are located in Oklahoma and I cannot be a citizen of all of them. Through NOISE, I am connected to the Osage because many of our board members are Osage. Through the work I do for NOISE, I am connected to those tribes whose members trust us to help bring their family members home.

Currently, I reside in the territory of the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma.

Neighboring tribes in my city include Citizen Potawatomi Nation – my stepmother's tribe – the Sac & Fox, and Absentee Shawnee.

I am also a member of Matriarch OK, which connects me to other Native American individuals I now or will one day call sister. Individuals that are not always from Oklahoma tribes or even from tribes in the U.S.

Red Alert takes what many MMIW organizations are already doing on social media and puts a spotlight directly on it.

We share posts on Facebook pages, and leave them open for public comment. We go to places to search and post to Snapchat's My Story for the public to see. We make sure to share fliers on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram too just in case viewers are not on Facebook.

But police do not always see these things. People send private messages about sightings instead of tips to police. Not every organization has someone that knows how to deep dive social media and turn up an account that was active two hours ago.

And most glaringly, the families do not always get the updates.

With the world at our fingertips, why should this be any different? I have known people too afraid to call in to a police department with a tip. How many things fall through the cracks due to breakdowns in communication?

An app like this could revolutionize the way we share information when searching for a missing person.

YEAR ONE:

Raise awareness.

To start, I would like to raise awareness of Red Alert and how it is intended to help the community. By increasing awareness, I will be able to increase the odds of securing funding, legal aid, and individuals working in tech to bring this app to life.

In order to do this, I plan to start out with a logo (temporary or otherwise) and basic information to be shared on social media.

Surveys will go out for organization and public input within Q1 and Q2.

Acquire donors and secure funding.

Acquiring donors will allow me to reach out to and get quotes on consultation fees for lawyers, designers, and coders as the process starts. Getting outlines from these individuals on what various legal fees or other assistance will cost and the cost to design and code will allow for better fundraising.

My hope is to at least have legal input started during Q3.

YEAR TWO:

Boost Contacts.

Once there is concrete information about Red Alert that can be shared with the public without the worry of legal implications, I will work on boosting contacts nationwide in preparation for national access to be live.

Launch!

Launch should occur in Oklahoma sometime in Year Two if funding is secured and design started in Year 1. If launched in Year 2, we should begin seeing immediate benefits due to the unfortunately high number of occurrences of MMIW.

Someone being missing is not a good thing, but having an easier time with the process can be.

YEAR THREE AND BEYOND:

Red Alert is something intended to help some of the most vulnerable, and as such, will not be for profit. When it comes to impact goals, things like increasing revenue by 25% or closing a certain amount of sales are not necessary. Or, maybe they are in order to keep it running, but I aspire for this to be something run with donor support. MMIW is not something that should be profited from.

Increase ad click-through rate.

If necessary, ads can be placed in-app so that members of the public who may be sending information in can be a part of the Solution. Organizations and family members would not see these ads since the point of Red Alert is to share information.

Red Alert will not use ads for companies that are not practicing responsible consumption and production.

Prepare for launch in Canada.

Within three years of running Red Alert, I hope to boost contacts in Canada and potentially partner with an organization to run the Canadian side of things. This will mean more networking, but also more legal consultation to ensure Red Alert is compliant with any laws applicable to Canada.

This is not my strong suit, and due to the nature of my Solution's specific impact goals, these Targets and Indicators lean more toward the Solution itself.

In order to measure progress I will set realistic monthly and quarterly goals, such as: "Get 100 shares for the informational post on Facebook" and "Create contacts within 10 other MMIW organizations".

When it comes to specific things like lawyers and coders, I will work with the respective individuals to come up with a schedule suitable to both of our needs and timelines.

Consulting with a professional on impact goals and target indicators may be something to do for Red Alert before really getting started.

You have seen the statistics for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, but unfortunately, there are no statistics on how many people have been told to hold off on their missing persons reports by police. There is no quantifiable data on how many people fail to call police with reports or tips in cases of MMIW out of fear.

Simply put, there is just not enough data about MMIW and the National Indian Council on Aging will tell you this.

These are things you hear when someone comes to your organization because they have asked for help from ever local police department and tribal police have still turned them away because their child "is just a runaway anyways" or they do not know who to turn to after finding blood in the bathroom because of misinformation about waiting 48 hours.

There have been calls to hold authorities accountable for addressing crimes committed against Native women because it is all too often that we hear these stories. A woman loses her voice, and then authorities ignore her family members.

I expect Red Alert aims to bridge this gap directly by making sure families have access to reported sightings* in one easily-accessed space. We are already doing this work, why not have it all in one place?

*Only if reported in the app. PDs will not be responsible for cross-archiving data reported to them.

Primarily, an app.

Please refer to "What is your solution?" for deeper information on the technologies Red Alert will utilize.

When seeking individuals to bring Red Alert to life, there will be no discrimination based on race, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual preference, or disability status nor will it be tolerated by anyone working on this project.

Indian Preference will be given when it comes to seeking out any individuals for legal aid or design and coding just as my tribe and the others in Oklahoma give. There are many talented American Indian and Alaska Native individuals if given the chance to sign. In any occasion where someone that is a good fit cannot be found, BIPOC will be considered next. After that, preference will be given to women in law and tech.

Because this concerns MMIW, it is of utmost importance to have Native women and femmes involved.

And of course, anyone who is not in agreement with the acknowledgment that Indigenous Peoples are the traditional stewards of the land, and of the enduring relationship that exists between us and our traditional territories, is not a good fit.

Yes, colonization happened, and the products of it enduring is a reason there are so many MMIW. Anyone who believes Natives were colonized and need to assimilate are not in alignment with the work being done here. Radical? Maybe. But it is time to decolonize.

As mentioned, I do not believe MMIW is something to profit from. From my desire to be fully transparent, my plan for financial stability is to acquire sustained donations and grants along with ad placement for those that are public users of the app.

The accounts reporting a missing person and organizations will not see ads. When cases are closed and someone is no longer considered in-app to be the family of a missing person, but submitting as a member of the public for other cases, they may see ads.

Ultimately, I would like to run this app completely on donations and grant funding. Tribal support and support from law enforcement would be amazing as well.