Tribe grapples with missing women crisis on California coast

By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press

YUROK RESERVATION, Calif. (AP) — Five Native American women have disappeared or been killed along California’s rugged Lost Coast in the past 18 months. The crisis has spurred the Yurok Tribe to issue an emergency declaration and brought increased urgency to efforts to build the first database of such cases in California. The tribe also is working to gain supervision over foster care and build an Indigenous justice system that would ultimately handle all but the most serious felonies. Tribal officials say reclaiming sovereignty over such systems is the only way to end the cycle of loss that’s taken the greatest toll on their women.