City Calls On LAPD To Disclose Usage Of 'Feather Alert'

The Los Angeles City Council advanced a motion on Tuesday that will require the Los Angeles Police Department to disclose how it has put California's "Feather Alert" into practice. The statewide system was enacted earlier this year to find missing Indigenous people.

California is home to the largest Native American population in the country, and L.A. has one of the largest Indigenous populations of any city in the country.

The California Judicial Council reported Indigenous women are murdered at 10 times the national average. State Assemblymember James Ramos , who authored the Feather Alert System Bill, said the state ranks fifth in the nation for most cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people.

"It's a crisis when you're number five of all states in the nation of not bringing resolve or even investigating these murders against Native American people," said the San Bernardino County Democrat. "There has to be a cry to bring that information forward and to start to bring resolve forward."

Ramos entered the California Assembly in 2018 and authored AB 3099, which called on the Attorney General to begin collecting data and information on why cases were uninvestigated throughout the state.

That led to working with the Sovereign Body Institute, and brought more Native American organizations together to collect and bring forward data to the state, according to Ramos.

"But what's still happening is murders and disappearance of Native American people in the state of California," he said, which is why he moved forward on creating the Feather Alert system after hearing guidance from tribal communities.

Reservations are considered sovereign governments, with their own government and law enforcement. But the Feather Alert allows law enforcement to issue a notification similar to an Amber or Silver alert.

According to the motion, the LAPD must report on "their existing efforts and programming catered to help and serve the Native American community, such as the Indigenous Academy."

In September, Ramos met with the LAPD, the L.A. County Sheriff's Department and others and connected them with tribal law enforcement and community members to educate them on the Feather Alert.

However, there is no timeline for a report to be returned to the city council. Still, Ramos commended the city for its allyship in addressing a crisis plaguing Indigenous people.