Arizona Department of Public Safety’s Tribal Liaison, Capt. Paul Etnire, provided an update on state law, including the new Missing Endangered Persons and Turquoise Alert System, during a mandatory MMIW training at the Tohono O’odham San Xavier Police Station on May 28, 2025. Photo by Shondiin Silversmith | Arizona Mirror
Standing in front of a room full of Tohono O’odham police officers, April Ignacio asked who was familiar with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement. Three of the 15 officers raised their hands.
The MMIW movement started in the early 1990s in Canada through grassroots efforts to bring awareness to the high number of Indigenous women going missing and being murdered. Since then, it has grown and Indigenous peoples around the world are leading MMIW efforts.
The experiences of MMIW vary from community to community, but Ignacio said the overall movement started from “people connecting the dots.”
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Ignacio is the co-founder of Indivisible Tohono, a grassroots organization that educates and organizes the community on issues affecting the Tohono O’odham Nation.
She is a long-time MMIW advocate and is a member of the Southern Arizona MMIP Task Force for Tucson and Pima County, as well as the State’s MMIP Task Force.
In May, Ignacio began providing mandatory training on MMIW for the Tohono O’odham Police Department, with the goal of training every officer in the department by the end of August.
“The first step is getting law enforcement to understand that this is a real issue,” Ignacio said, and the MMIW training will provide police officers of her tribe with some insight into the ongoing crisis within Indigenous communities.
“The main goal is to provide updates that there is this crisis,” she said. “With missing and murdered Indigenous people, we have the opportunity to shape how we are going to respond.”
By providing this type of training, Ignacio said it offers an opportunity for local law enforcement to engage in shaping responses to the MMIW crisis moving forward by identifying existing gaps within the tribe’s system that can be changed.
“It’s far easier to change locally than it is to change across the board in Arizona or nationally,” she added.
The first training took place at the Tohono O’odham San Xavier Police Department near Tucson on May 27 and 28. Ignacio conducted the training with the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s Tribal Liaison, Capt. Paul Etnire.
Being able to personally provide resources to the Tohono O’odham Police Department about MMIW and the impact on her people has been a goal for Ignacio for years.
“We have been trying extremely hard,” Ignacio said.
The training offered an overview of the MMIW movement and its current status at the federal, state and local levels. Ignacio provided an update on the ongoing efforts of the state MMIP task force and the Southern Arizona Task Force. Additionally, Etnire introduced changes in state law, including the new Missing Endangered Persons and Turquoise Alert System.
A significant part of the training involved Ignacio showing the police officers what MMIW efforts look like on the Tohono O’odham Nation — and the ongoing impacts.
On a table in the training room, Igancio set up photos of the missing and murdered women from the Tohono O’odham Nation. The entire purpose is to make sure the names and faces of the women and girls are not forgotten.
“This isn’t all of them,” Ignacio told the officers. “This is just a handful of them.”
On the Tohono O’odham Nation, Igancio said a majority of murdered women are killed by people they know or their intimate partners.
Ignacio said the trainings would not have been possible without the personal relationships that Indivisible Tohono has with individuals within the Tohono O’odham Police Department.
For years, Ignacio said that her inquiries with the TOPD involving MMIW had received little response.
That all changed when she connected with the Tohono O’odham Interim Police Chief James Cook during the Southern Arizona MMIP Task Force meeting in April, and he asked her what the department could do now.
She thought it would be one session, but learned it is mandatory for the entire TOPD.
The Arizona Mirror reached out to Cook for an interview, but did not receive a response.
Ignacio said it’s crucial for police officers to receive an introduction to MMIW because they engage directly with the community through public safety.
The introduction plants that seed, she said, by providing them with a broad view of how systemically Indigenous people are targeted and impacted.
Indigenous populations are much smaller than any other demographic, Ignacio said, which makes the number of MMIW cases higher and detrimental to the community’s livelihood.
The Tohono O’odham Police Department is the only tribal police department that Igancio is aware of in Arizona that makes training on MMIP mandatory for its police officers, placing it ahead of more than 100 police departments across the state.
As she provided the training, Ignacio said she was surprised at how receptive the police officers were to all the information about MMIP and identifying the gaps within their department.
For instance, when it comes to reporting and providing notifications about sex offenders within the Tohono O’odham Nation, Ignacio said the Tohono O’odham Police Department excels at this task.
But when it comes to tracking and informing the community about missing persons from the Tohono O’odham Nation, the department drops the ball.
“That is a component that is completely missing from making sure that the public is made aware of who those individuals are when they’re located,” Ignacio said.
For instance, Igancio said her cousin, Karanina Ignacio, has been missing since 2019 from Sells, on the Tohono O’odham Nation.
Ignacio said her cousin was a journeyman plumber who worked on the Desert Diamond Casino in Glendale during its construction, but one day she walked away from her house and never came back.
“We have not heard from her,” she said, adding that if it were not for her connections at the TOPD, she would not know anything about her cousin’s case.
However, Ignacio said, it was up to her to continue calling the department every month to request updates on her cousin’s case, including any new leads, suspects, or information. The family still does not know why she is missing.
Ignacio said that there are no methods implemented by the TOPD that keep families updated on a missing or murdered person’s case. That is a gap in the system, she said, that can be filled in various ways.
For example, she said that the department can create an MMIW website and keep it updated with a list of missing people in the community. They can ensure that detectives stay in contact with families and provide them with timely updates.
“These are small changes that can be made in the community that go a long way,” she said, adding that it would make a difference for the people on the Tohono O’odham Nation.
Some of the feedback from the officers included questions on why there is a lack of data on MMIW, what can be done to prevent it from becoming a missing and murdered persons case and the challenges officers face when responding to incidents.
One officer said that 90% of the cases they have responded to for domestic violence are often related to behavioral and mental health issues or substance abuse. He wanted to know what could be done to keep it from getting to the point where they are reported missing or murdered.
The officer said that they are not allowed to transport anyone off of tribal land to receive services, even if they need the help.
“Update the code,” Igancio responded, explaining that the only way things will change is if more pressure is applied to elected Tohono O’odham leaders to establish and update services.
“Right now, the Tohono O’odham Nation has no grief counselors available within behavioral health,” she added. “The domestic violence program is grant-funded, which means they’re fighting for dollars every year.”
Then there’s the pervasive data problem for missing and murdered Indigenous peoples. There is still no comprehensive database that provides accurate numbers or data related to missing and murdered Indigenous peoples across the country. Without a centralized system among the thousands of federal, state, and tribal entities, the information available remains limited.
Etnire said that when it comes to the numbers, they’re “all wonky and they’re all over the place” on local, state, and national levels.
“We have failed,” he said, adding not only law enforcement but on all fronts, from the community to healthcare systems. “We have all failed.”
With the limited data available, Arizona is reported to have the third-largest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in the country, according to the Urban Indian Health Institute.
The group’s study reported 506 known cases in 71 urban areas across the country, 54 of which were in Arizona, including 31 in Tucson, which borders the Tohono O’odham and Pascua Yaqui Nations.
Etnire said that, as officers work cases involving missing persons, it is their responsibility to investigate why the victim is missing by asking questions and determining the cause of their disappearance.
“We owe it to them and we owe it to their families,” he said.
As law enforcement officers, Etnire said their purpose is to ensure public safety, which means protecting their communities.
“Everything that we do, our tasks, whether it’s a traffic stop, making a new arrest, taking a report, investigating a crime, those are tasks to support public safety,” he said, adding that the state is not going to tell tribes or other law enforcement agencies how to do their job.
And tribal agencies need to realize that DPS won’t take the lead on their cases if they fall within their local jurisdiction.
“We are there as a resource,” Etnire said.
A concern raised by an officer during training was that a common barrier they face in the community is the lack of cooperation from the individuals involved in incidents, whether they are unwilling to file a report, serve as witnesses or fear being arrested. This barrier often leads to police officers being blamed for not resolving the issues.
“We can’t do anything unless we get some support from the community,” the officer said.
Ignacio said that it is a valid point, which is why it is important for Indigenous communities to have these uncomfortable conversations about what is done to Indigenous people and what they do to themselves.
“These are the bits and pieces that are broken and this is where we see what would help,” she said.
Indivisible Tohono works to provide resources within the Tohono O’odham Nation about how MMIW impacts the community and ways to address it.
For instance, they work with the Emerge Center Against Domestic Abuse in Tucson to offer workshops for young men in the community.
They actively conduct outreach across the 11 districts of the Tohono O’odham Nation, providing education and information on how state and federal laws impact systemic issues, such as MMIP.
Ignacio will carry out MMIW training throughout the summer and aims to train all members of the Tohono O’odham Police Department by the end of August.
She said these trainings are a good starting point, and she hopes other tribes will consider hosting their own.
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This post was originally authored and published by Shondiin Silversmith from AZ Mirror via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
