SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO.com) — South Dakota’s attorney general has announced that he has filled a position to coordinate efforts from state, tribal and local law enforcement agencies, as well as nonprofit organizations, to tackle alarming rates of Indigenous people going missing or having their deaths remain unsolved.
Allison Morrisette assumed her duties as the state’s inaugural Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Coordinator on Monday.
An enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe, Morrisette last served as Adult Diversion Coordinator for the Pennington County State’s Attorney.
Mary Beth Holzwarth began her new job as South Dakota’s Human Trafficking Coordinator alongside Morrisette on November 28.
For the past 13 years, she has served as the CEO of Endeavor 52, a grassroots organization dedicated to child sexual assault prevention.
The attorney general’s office has put a new focus on crimes against Native American people, recently hiring the two women to address problems Vargo described as interrelated: human trafficking and missing or murdered Indigenous people.
The state’s Native American communities suffer from crisis-level rates of people going missing or killed.
Currently, 57% of people who are listed in the attorney general’s database of missing people are Native American.
Vargo said he was looking forward to seeing the positive impact these two Coordinators can make for the citizens of South Dakota.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report)
