New Mexico to receive extra FBI personnel to investigate cases, including those related to MMIP

FARMINGTON — The FBI is sending additional personnel to various field offices to help investigate cases of violent crimes involving members of tribal nations, including those related to missing and murdered Indigenous people.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that the agency will place 60 personnel in 10 field offices, including Albuquerque. Workers will rotate in 90-day temporary duty assignments over six months.

“Crime rates in American Indian and Alaska Native communities are unacceptably high,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in the news release. “By surging FBI resources and collaborating closely with U.S. attorneys and tribal law enforcement to prosecute cases, the Department of Justice will help deliver the accountability that these communities deserve.”

The Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit will assist personnel, according to the release. The DOJ reports that at the beginning of fiscal year 2025, the FBI’s Indian Country program had approximately 4,300 open investigations. Cases range from child abuse to adult sexual abuse.

Sending extra personnel is the latest action in a multi-year initiative known as Operation Not Forgotten. This initiative under the FBI has been providing support since 2023 to field offices that serve or are near tribal communities.

Farmington and Gallup have resident agencies and those are expected to receive the added resources during the six-month period, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eliot Neal said on Friday during a meeting of the New Mexico Department of Justice’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP) Task Force.

Neal, who is a task force member, could not specify what types of cases will be singled out, but the extra personnel will work on cases that fall under the Major Crimes Act.

“I’m hoping before those agents even step foot in New Mexico … we can have a list of investigative steps for them to take on these cases,” he said. “So that they can hit the ground running.”

This was the third time the task force met since forming last year to address the MMIP crisis that has been impacting tribes and pueblos in New Mexico. The meeting in Farmington was the first one where the entirety of the meeting was open to the public.

Last March, the NMDOJ launched an interactive portal online to provide information about MMIP cases across the state.

“We’re moving forward to make this database something that not only benefits our law enforcement partners but our community as well,” said Clarence Gibson, special agent in charge of the MMIP unit with NMDOJ.

He reminded the task force that the portal is a working tool and the department continues to gather data to update profiles. New features added to it are listings of MMIP-focused events and pages that memorialize loved ones.

“We’re trying to get it to where this tool will be utilized to communicate with other agencies, collaborate on investigations and build in a process that agencies are working in unison,” Gibson said.

He added, “The more eyes that we can get on a case, the better chances we have in solving that case.”

Amber Kanazbah Crotty represents seven chapter areas on the Navajo Nation Council and is chairperson of the Missing and Murdered Diné Relatives Task Force, a committee established under the council.

Crotty wanted to know the sustainability of the portal. This includes securing yearly funding in the state budget for the system and developing dialogue between pueblos and tribes to advance the portal.

“What we don’t want is — because of all of the advocacy work of the families — then in one or two years, this fizzles out,” she said.

Becky Martinez has been advocating finding her brother, Calvin Willie Martinez, who was last seen in May 2019 somewhere in the area that encompasses Albuquerque, Farmington and Grants.

As she stood before the task force, she once again asked what is being done to address MMIP cases in New Mexico.

She added that this time, she did not bring a poster that displays a photo of her brother.

“I wanted to bring my brother’s picture, and I’m tired of carrying around his picture,” Martinez said while fighting back tears. “I am tired of it. It is a weight on me. It is a weight on these families.”

Family members at the meeting brought posters of loved ones, which were displayed throughout the room. They spoke to the task force about interactions with law enforcement agencies, including jurisdictional hurdles and criticism over how missing person cases are investigated.

New Mexico’s previous MMIP task force was under the state’s Department of Indian Affairs. That task force ended in 2023 after releasing a state response plan.

Since questions remained on how to adequately address the crisis of MMIP, state lawmakers supported in 2024 continuing work to tackle the matter and established the current task force within the NMDOJ.