‘Just another Native’: Minneapolis Indigenous women demand emergency response to violence

In a room filled with grief and rage, Indigenous women leaders on Tuesday called on Minneapolis officials to declare a state of emergency, saying the city is failing to protect them from trafficking, violence and drug-related homicides.

Native women make up less than 1% of Minnesota’s population — but between 2010-2019, 10% of Minnesota’s missing women were Native.

“Our population is shrinking,” said Ruth Buffalo, CEO of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center. “We don’t have anywhere else to flee or go to, to return to. This is it. And the lack of attention, the lack of resources, whether it’s intentional or not, continues to send a message of, oh, well, who cares? It’s just another Native, probably an overdose.”

Dozens of community members filled the room to confront city officials, including Minneapolis police officers, representatives from the mayor’s office and the Minneapolis health commissioner about the incessant violence facing Native women and children — from sexual exploitation and human trafficking to misclassified deaths and shattered families. Buffalo called on the nationwide Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) movement to address the disproportionately high rates of violent crime against Indigenous people.

Ana Negrete, Interim Director of Minnesota’s MMIR office, said their role “is just one part of a comprehensive response to this epidemic.”

“We all have a role to play. We need stronger local partnerships and swift, coordinated law enforcement responses to meet the scale of the crisis.”

Negrete said one of their new efforts is creating new data collection that will help identify systemic gaps, like identifying problems when filing missing persons reports and documenting delays in response.

“Anecdotal information is important. Real and precise data is a powerful force for change,” Negrete said.

Some spoke through tears. Others, like Carol LaFleur, spoke from firsthand trauma.

“My daughter is a [sex trafficking] victim. And as we say, they either die or they come back,” she said. “Well, even if they come back, they’re not the same. My daughter will never be the person that people thought she was ever again. I don’t know who she even is anymore.”

She added, “It’s not just women; children are being trafficked, as well as men. So it’s an all-around issue.”

Others described what their children are seeing on walks to school.

“There are people out using,” said Louise Matson, vice chair of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Council. “And there’s this prostitution going on. It’s a lot of Native women. We put curtains up in our classroom so our kids don’t have to look at the women standing on every corner.”

Matson recalled an incident outside of the Minnesota Women’s Indian Resource Center, where a temporary shelter was erected about two weeks ago. Surveillance footage showed a Native woman and “a lot of non-Native men, just going in and out right there.”

Police representatives at the meeting acknowledged the problems, but said their resources are stretched thin.

“As a law enforcement officer, the trafficking piece bothers me a great deal, because as an officer, I know what comes with that,” said Assistant Chief of Community Trust Christopher Gaiters. “It starts off with someone who just approaches, and smooth-talks someone into a vehicle, or going to a party late at night, or going somewhere, and eventually, they oftentimes just disappear.”

Gaiters said that police are not a panacea for the threats against Native communities.

“However, I will say that I know working with the community works,” he said.

“And that doesn’t mean being reactionary. It has to be preventative. It has to be proactively done. It has to be that we’re out on the street. If we could have our own way with everything, we’d have a cop on every single corner, but being realistic about it, you know, we’re unable to do that at this point.”

The situation in Minneapolis reflects a broader crisis. According to a 2023 report by the federal government’s Indian Health Service, 84% of Native women nationwide have experienced violence in their lifetime. Native women are murdered at rates more than 10 times the national average in some jurisdictions, and homicide is the third-leading cause of death among Indigenous women under 20. Advocates say those figures are likely undercounts, as deaths are often misclassified or overlooked entirely.

“This is connected to everything,” Buffalo said. “You know, homicides, the high rates of overdoses, and then being so quick to deem an overdose as a homicide, or trying to overlook an overdose when it could, in fact, have been in homicide, you know. So it’s kind of looking the other way.”

Several attendees accused the Minneapolis Police Department of failing to protect Native women — and in some cases, for misrepresenting what happened to them after death.

Jana Williams is the aunt of Allison Lussier, found dead last year in her North Loop apartment. Her family maintains she died at the hands of an abusive boyfriend, with evidence of head injury discovered through an autopsy. Police say the case remains unsolved because her manner of death could not be determined, and that evidence collected from the scene pointed to drug use rather than overt signs of violence.

“So now, how as an Indigenous community can we possibly trust in the fact that you’re going to show up and do the right thing, not cover it up, and certainly not sweep our deaths under the rug, and just say, ‘You know what? It’s an overdose,’” Williams said.

Others said even routine interactions have broken trust with the department. Jolene Jones recalled an overdose at a corner store when a 17-year-old bystander frantically administered Narcan. The teen asked an officer in a nearby squad for more, and was told to call 911. An 11-year-old sprinted back to Little Earth for more.

“Every time we build relationships with MPD, we get let down,” she said. “It is exhausting right now. It’s been exhausting for a while. And I don’t know if you realize how hard that is for those of us who are trying to build these relationships.”

The question for many in the room was no longer whether there’s a problem. It’s what the city is willing to do about it.

Some leaders pushed for specific actions: dedicated city funding for security around key Native-led organizations, targeted enforcement against traffickers and drug dealers and a formal emergency declaration to trigger coordinated action across agencies. For now, much of the burden still falls on community members to protect one another.

“If our people need help somewhere, I’m gonna address it,” said Vinny Dionne, a facilitator with the Many Shields Society, which provides community patrolling and protection around the East Phillips neighborhood. Dionne said he is the type of person to leap into action when problems arise, but he knows he can’t do it alone.

“What are our action steps? What can we do?” he said. “We’ve been stuck here just with the Band-Aids, with short-term goals from the police. We call the police on the dealers, and another one pops in.”

Dionne’s day job focuses on providing recovery services and support to Native people struggling with addiction. He’s seen countless women exploited due to addiction, and wonders how state and local agencies can address the cycle of violence at its root.

“A lot of our women, especially the ones in active addiction, are definitely being used by men out here. A lot of these drug dealers use our women as their own sexual toys. If I have a bag of dope, when you’re in active use, I can get you to do anything I want with this, because this is what you need to function.”

The meeting ended with calls for deeper investment — in safety, in services and in listening. Buffalo said the lack of resources and attention to the crisis for Native women sends a message “that we don’t matter.”

“We’re a shrinking population to begin with. We have a very low life expectancy, and then we’re dying,” she said. “Maybe that’s the plan by design, to carry out the original plans from harmful federal policies to where we’re no longer here on this Earth anymore.”