Kansas law enforcement training about missing or murdered indigenous people now available

The legislation passed with bipartisan support in 2021. Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced the training module was ready last month.

By

State News

August 10, 2022 - 4:42 PM

Rep. Christina Haswood, D-Lawrence, prays during a May 2021 service at the Statehouse that included an apology to American Indians. Haswood, who is a member of the Navajo Nation, says the effort to focus on missing and murdered indigenous people brings action and awareness to disproportionate rates of abduction, murder, violence and human trafficking. Photo by (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

LAWRENCE — A new training module for Kansas law enforcement agencies focusing on investigations of missing and murdered Indigenous people is now available.

The Kansas Attorney General’s Office partnered with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center to develop the training, according to a news release from the attorney general’s office. These three entities incorporated input from the four federally recognized American Indian tribes in Kansas and American Indian legislators who sponsored legislation to create the training module.

“In 2019, lawmakers in 14 states introduced 30 measures about the underreporting and data collecting problems that demonstrate the difficulty in solving the murder cases of (missing and murdered indigenous women),” said Wichita Democratic Rep. Ponka-We Victors-Cozad, who sponsored House Bill 2008.

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