Prayers, tears and calls to action at vigil for Native American teen killed in Arizona

The death of 14-year-old Emily Pike of the San Carlos Apache Nation has rocked the Native American community. From Mesa, Arizona, where she lived, to Portland, Oregon — communities across the country are coming together to remember her and call for justice.

Friday, as the sun set, people gathered at a park in Albuquerque to do the same. In New Mexico, as prayers were said in the wind at Pike’s candlelight vigil, a Native-run motorcycle group was in the middle of its journey in Arizona escorting Pike’s remains from a morgue in Globe to her memorial and funeral on the San Carlos Apache Reservation.

“I couldn’t think of a better day,” said Deiandra Reed, the land and body violence coordinator for the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women.

On Feb. 14, Pike’s dismembered remains were found in several heavy-duty trash bags on a forest service road outside of Globe, according to the Gila County Sheriff’s Office. No suspects have been publicly identified by police. Pike is the latest child to die in what activists have called the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’ Crisis (MMIWG). Native women and girls face significantly higher rates of violence as compared with other groups, studies show, and advocates have said that law enforcement and politicians aren’t doing enough to combat the issue.

Investigations under way

Pike was last seen on Jan. 27, after she reportedly ran away from her group home in Mesa, according to a Mesa Police Department notice. In the wake of Pike’s death, San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler has called for state leaders in Arizona to investigate the group home, Sacred Journey. Rambler claimed that 30 other children have run away from the same group home in the past three years.

“This crime must not go unsolved,” Rambler said in a letter sent to Arizona state leaders. “Emily was murdered in a cruel, depraved and heinous act and the perpetrator(s) must be held accountable.”

Likely due to fallout from the Federal Indian Boarding School system, Native children are overrepresented in foster care systems, according to a report from the National Indian Child Welfare Association.

The San Carlos Apache Tribal Council has offered a $75,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Pike’s killer, and called on the public to help supplement the reward in hopes of solving the case. Police have set up a tipline to submit information regarding the case.

“Emily was in the system, and the system failed her,” said Venetta Sando at the vigil, echoing a sentiment shared by many of the event’s speakers. Sando, a member of Jemez Pueblo, contacted the coalition and asked them to organize a vigil after Pike’s remains were found.

Calls to Action

Wrapped tightly in a red shawl, the chosen color of the MMIWG movement, Sen. Angel Charley, D-Acoma, called on Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to sign the Turquoise Alert bill, which would establish an alert system for missing Native people, akin to the Amber Alert.

“If you’re angry, if you’re hurt, if there are things you want to do — one of the things that I would ask us to do this evening after we leave here, is to call Michelle Lujan Grisham and ask for her to sign that Senate bill into law so that we join the states of Washington, California and Colorado in establishing an alert system that meets the needs of our communities,” Charley said.

Lujan Grisham has until April 4 to sign the bill into law; if she doesn’t, it will be pocket vetoed, meaning Charley and other advocates will have to start their push for a statewide alert system all over again next year. Senate Bill 41 was unanimously passed by both the House and Senate in March.

“I pray and I hope for the times when we (get to) gather that are not about the ways we died, but that are about the ways that we lived,” Charley said.