Missing indigenous numbers drop, work still needed on alert systems

The number of actively missing North Dakotans from Indigenous communities declined from 15 in 2025 down to 9 as of mid-2026, the chair of a new task force helping address the crisis told a legislative committee on Oct. 1. 

Lonnie Grabowska, director of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation and chair of the Missing Indigenous People Task Force, credited the drop to task force efforts as well as to the tribes for providing information into the system. 

Grabowska said one of the biggest pieces for getting missing people identified is ensuring a photo of the individual is on file. 

“It seems really odd in this digital-heavy age, but to go to the family and ask for a photo, many times that is the hardest struggle,” Grabowska said. “Without a photo, people just don’t pay attention to it.” 

The task force was created during the last legislative session, and Grabowska was presenting its annual report on the activities and findings over the past year.

Wisconsin-based Fox Valley Technical College's Tribal Community Response Plan Training and Technical Assistance has been tagged as a resource for formal tribal community response plans, said Grabowska. 

The task force has recommended that each tribe go through the process. 

“They can come to that tribe and walk that tribal nation from having no plan to a fully implemented plan,” Grabowska said. 

After that process is complete, tribal nations can set up an emergency operations plan to better respond to missing persons cases, he said. 

“Without that emergency operation plan in place, we’re going to keep missing people, they’re not going to get called into law enforcement,” Grabowska said. 

Grabowska said priorities for the next year will be to increase capacity to use the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) for swift response to emergencies and missing person events in tribal areas, establish immediate notification protocols between tribal, local, state and federal partners, and create awareness about these channels in tribal communities. 

“We think what we can do is get each of those tribes to a very operational level where they can respond correctly,” Grabowska said of implementing the system. 

A Missing Indigenous People Grant Fund of $250,000 is administered by the task force and can be used for IPAWS subscription costs, emergency operations support and search-capacity needs. 

Grabowska said IPAWS was one of the best ways to get information out quickly without having to see if a person qualifies for an Indigenous person alert through a system like Feather Alert. 

The Feather Alert is a system for alerting the public if an Indigenous person goes missing under suspicious circumstances, similar to AMBER alerts for missing children or Silver alerts for missing elderly people. 

“They have a very proactive, time sensitive way to get the data out to their tribe, which is amazing because the sooner we get people looking for that individual, a license plate, make and model, the person, we start tracking better,” Grabowska said. 

“A lot of the delay for us appears when the tribal nation just doesn't let us know that they have the missing person,” he said. “Sometimes it'll be days going by, so that is, I think, where the IPAWS covers that gap and gets the notice out.” 

According to the report, the task force will also continue studying root cause characteristics such as age, gender and foster status that could put certain people at risk, as well as continuing reviews of the Feather Alert system. 

Only two Feather Alerts have been issued since it was adopted, both in 2025, according to the report. 

Trafficking report details grants 

Rachel Kmetz, finance director at the Office of Attorney General, also presented a report on state funding grants for human trafficking victims. 

During the current biennium, grant funding of over $728,000 has been provided to 13 programs and crisis centers across the state, with 631 human trafficking victims served. A total of 171 disclosures of human trafficking were provided at these facilities or through these programs, with another 1,009 disclosures of other abuse. 

Funding helps cover the costs for trafficking counselors, therapists, forensic interviews, specialists for trafficked minors, shelter space, legal assistance, mentorship and other services. 

Funding has also gone toward human trafficking awareness education at 63 schools across the state provided to sixth, 10th and 12th grade level students.