Feather Alert Instituted in 2022 via AB1314

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Bill Text - AB-1314 Gender identity: parental notification.

  • Washington State and Colorado have a similar system
  • Native American women & girls are murdered at a rate 10x higher that other ethnicities
  • A 2020 study detailed the rate of violence against Native women & girls
  • Murder is the third leading cause of death for Native American (Indigenous/First Nation) women
  • 4:5 indigenous women have experienced violence
  • There are roughly 200 tribes, 750,000 indigenous women in California
  • Rural areas of northern California have a disproportionately larger number of native women 

9 Feather Alerts were issued in 2023.  


SEC. 2.

Section 8594.13 is added to the Government Code, to read:
8594.13.

(a) For purposes of this section, “Feather Alert” means a notification system, activated pursuant to subdivision (b), designed to issue and coordinate alerts with respect to endangered indigenous people, specifically indigenous women or indigenous people, who are reported missing under unexplained or suspicious circumstances.(b) (1) If a person is reported missing to a law enforcement agency and that agency determines that the requirements of subdivision (c) are met, the law enforcement agency may request the Department of the California Highway Patrol to activate a Feather Alert. If the Department of the California Highway Patrol concurs that the requirements of subdivision (c) have been met, it shall activate a Feather Alert within the appropriate geographical area requested by the investigating law enforcement agency.

To activate the Feather Alert, the following criteria that must be met:

  • Missing person is an indigenous woman or an indigenous person.
  • Investigating law enforcement agency has utilized available local and tribal resources.
  • Local law enforcement agency determines that the person has gone missing under unexplained or suspicious circumstance.
  • Local law enforcement agency believes that the person is in danger because of age, health, mental or physical disability, or environment or weather conditions, that the person is in the company of a potentially dangerous person, or that there are other factors indicating that the person may be in peril.
  • Information is available that, if disseminated to the public, could assist in the safe recovery of the missing person.

According to the Sovereign Bodies Institute 2020 report only nine percent of murders of indigenous women in California have ever been solved.

 California steps up efforts to stem violence against Native Americans as state enacts new Feather Alert system | Assemblymember James C. Ramos (asmdc.org)

California has the highest population of Native American residents in the country, totaling around 750,00 and belonging to some 200 tribes. Many live in urban centers like San Francisco or Los Angeles. More rural regions in the north of the state have seen a disproportionately larger number of disappearances of Native women and girls.

Yurok Tribe Hires Investigator to Pursue New, Existing MMIP Cases

English - Taaqtam Müüy’müy’k (sovereign-bodies.org)

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