“Emily’s Law,” named for a Native American teen who was found dead, highlights the disproportionate rates of disappearance and death Indigenous people face.
By Praveena Somasundaram, The Washington PostA tribute to slain Native American teen Emily Pike adorns a fence near a vigil in her honor in Mesa, Ariz., Thursday, March 6, 2025. Arizona will launch an alert system for missing Indigenous people, becoming the latest state to do so in recent weeks to address a long-standing crisis for the Native American community, which faces disproportionately high rates of disappearances and deaths.
Arizona’s bill, signed Tuesday by Gov. Katie Hobbs after it received unanimous support from state lawmakers in both chambers, allows state law enforcement agencies to issue an emergency alert when a person under the age of 65 goes missing, including if they are a member of a federally recognized tribe. It is known as “Emily’s Law” in honor of Emily Pike, an Indigenous teenager who disappeared in January and was later found dead in a tragedy that rattled the Arizona community. Arizona is one of at least three states that have passed similar alert system bills over the last two months to urgently highlight cases of missing Native Americans. The bills seek to address a catastrophic problem for Indigenous people nationwide, whose cases often go unnoticed. During the Arizona House’s final vote on the measure last week, state Rep. Teresa Martinez , the bill’s primary sponsor, reminded lawmakers about Pike, a 14-year-old of the San Carlos Apache tribe. “Had this law been in place, an alert would have gone out to look for this little girl,” Martinez said. Pike went missing on Jan. 27 from a group home in Mesa, according to authorities. Her remains were found weeks later on Feb. 14, near the San Carlos Apache reservation. Her body had been dismembered.The circumstances surrounding her disappearance and death remain unclear. Pike’s mother said she didn’t hear that her daughter had gone missing from the group home until a week had passed, the Associated Press reported. No arrests have been made. “It breaks my heart that we, the state of Arizona, didn’t even go looking for this little girl,” Martinez said. Arizona’s new bill will establish the “turquoise alert system” for authorities to issue alerts for people who have gone missing “under unexplained or suspicious circumstances.” The agencies that are allowed to use the system include local and tribal police departments, as well as federal law enforcement. The idea of the turquoise alert, modeled after existing systems such as the Amber Alert for missing children, began with Washington state, which launched an alert system for missing Indigenous people in 2022. That year, Colorado began a similar program, and California approved legislation for its own “feather alert” system. New Mexico and North Dakota followed suit in recent weeks. Last year, the Federal Communications Commission also adopted a new missing-persons code that it said would help the more than 188,000 people who went missing but fell outside the criteria for Amber Alerts - in particular Indigenous and Black people. The code will go into effect in September, according to the agency. In 2024 alone, there were 10,248 incidents of an American Indian or Alaska Native person going missing, FBI data shows. Of those, 1,540 remained active at the end of the year, and 233 of the reports were still active as of late April. Pike’s family visited Washington this month to meet with FBI Director Kash Patel and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who described the meeting as “a heartbreaking reminder of the urgency to end violence against Indigenous women and girls.” While they continue to search for answers, members of Pike’s family and community advocated for Arizona’s new alert system bill, which was amended to include text that said: “The purpose of this act is to honor and memorialize the life of San Carlos Apache Tribal member, Emily Pike.” Pike’s uncle, Allred Pike Jr., told the Associated Press on Friday of his niece: “Though she’s not here with us, she’s still making a difference.”
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