A new report finds Wyoming’s Indigenous residents have a disproportionately higher homicide rate than the general population. Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon created the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Task Force in 2012 and assigned the group to address the barriers for investigating and helping victims. The report finds Indigenous people make up less than 3% of Wyoming’s population, yet account for 21% of homicide victims. These rates are also higher than the national average. Tribal communities identified three key barriers to consistent reporting and response to cases.

• Lack of trust in law enforcement and/or the judicial process.

• Absence of a single point of contact among law enforcement, agencies and communities to help families navigate the system.

• Perceived lack of information concerning the timely progress of an investigation or judicial proceeding.

AMBER Alert Europe marked a number of important milestones for its goal of #ZeroMissingKids in its annual report for 2019. The highlights include:

• The organization’s Police Expert Network on Missing Persons (PEN-MP) was officially recognized by all member states of the European Union.

• PEN-MP appointed Damjan Miklič with the Slovenian Police Directorate as the new president representing the 60 police experts from 16 countries.

• The ‘Stay Safe With Simon’ campaign was launched to teach children how to protect themselves from being abducted.

AMBER Alert Europe also started partnerships with national police forces of Sweden, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Lithuania, as well as with missing persons organizations in the UK and Spain. Find the report here.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yosi released a report for National Missing Children’s Day, documenting 25,619 people who went missing in the state in 2018—including 19,879 children. The report noted that 96.1 percent—or 19,510 children—were recovered safely by the end of the year.

Ohio had 19 attempted child abductions in 2018 involving 14 girls and five boys. About one-third of the suspects were driving vehicles and half of the incidents occurred while the children were walking to or from school.