Indianz.Com > News > New documentary explores crisis of missing and murdered relatives
New Documentary Film Say Her Name Premieres May 5 To Get Authorities And Media To Investigate Nearly 50 Unsolved And Ignored Cases Of Missing And Murdered Indigenous People In Montana
Drugs And Trafficking Blamed – Debuts May 5th In Recognition Of Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) Awareness Day – President Biden Supports ‘Unconscionable’ Issue
Tuesday, May 4, 2021
The following is the text of a press release from the team behind the Say Her Name project.
BIGHORN COUNTY, Montana — Say Her Name, a new documentary film, premieres Wednesday, May 5 on “Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) Awareness Day.”
The film was produced to bring awareness of the 86% of Montana’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s cases that remain unsolved. They are also being ignored by local authorities and not getting the media attention they deserve. The film is directed by Rain who served on President Joe Biden’s Indigenous Policy Committee and recently made recommendations for the President and Vice President Harris on the MMIW crisis.
Say Her Name will be available online, free of charge. The trailer can be viewed here: youtu.be/psUA5jCuOgg.
Say Her Name indicates that some of the murders are due to the connection of the methamphetamine trade and human trafficking that is rampant in the region, conducted beneath the dark cape of organized crime. The film explores if it is incompetence or corruption at the heart of regional law enforcement’s silence and ineptitude.
President Biden has said of the MMIW crisis, “What’s happening to Indigenous women on reservations and across the United States is unconscionable and outrageous. And it is devastating that families are conducting their own searches for missing loved ones. It must end.”
President Biden’s statement epitomizes what Say Her Name exposes in Bighorn County, Montana, the epicenter of the MMIW crisis in the United States. Hardin, Montana, the county seat of Bighorn County, has a population of approximately 3,500. Bighorn County has nearly 50 documented Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s cases – 27 women and girls and approximately 20 men and boys.
“Law enforcement and the Bighorn County Attorney were provided with multiple opportunities to comment and share their perspectives in Say Her Name. They declined,” said Rain.
Most of the perpetrators of these crimes have yet to be apprehended and brought to justice. Because of the remote location, most cases remain unsolved as the country’s national media isn’t focused there though there are an estimated 240-plus more victims and likely many others due to underreporting.
Personified by the tragic case of Crow and Northern Cheyenne Tribal Community Teenager, named Kaysera Stops Pretty Places, the situation in Bighorn County cries out for United States Attorney General Merrick Garland to launch an investigation.
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