The story of Gabby Petito — a young woman who went missing in Wyoming and was found murdered — has gained national attention over the past few months. But for some, it has also drawn attention to the fact that not every woman who goes missing in Wyoming gets the same attention — particularly not indigenous women. For Lynette Grey Bull, this problem has been apparent, and one she has been fighting for years.
Grey Bull is Northern Arapaho and Hunkpapa Lakota, and the founder of Not Our Native Daughters, an organization seeking to end trafficking, exploitation, and murder of indigenous people. She also serves on the Wyoming Governor’s Task Force for Missing, Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP), which was developed on her request to Governor Mark Gordon, as well as the Wyoming Human Trafficking Task Force.
Grey Bull visited Sweetwater County over the weekend when she spoke at the YWCA Silent Witness Initiative Saturday.
Sharing her own story as a survivor of domestic violence, Grey Bull also touched on the realities indigenous women face, including the fact that Native American women suffer domestic violence 50 times higher than the national average. Out of the 574 tribes that exist throughout the United States, only 58 have domestic violence shelters, according to Grey Bull. And that’s just the beginning of the problem.
“I stand before you, a full-blooded Native American woman, but the statistics that hang over my head, and my daughters’ heads, and all indigenous women and girls’ heads, is that I am the most stalked, raped, sexually assaulted and murdered — more than any other ethnicity in this country,” Grey Bull said during the event.
Grey Bull said she’s shared those statistics many times, but it hurts her every time she has to say it because it shouldn’t be a reality. Believing this, she has devoted her life to changing that reality. She also noted she never points statistics out to elicit guilt or try to place blame, but because she wants everyone to work together to change them.
“One thing I came to realize while working with these nationwide organizations was that nobody was specifically focusing on Native American women and children,” Grey Bull explained.
Around the same time, the US Census Bureau released statistics showing Native American women had the worst statistics when it came to violence and deaths — the same statistics that haven’t changed since.
“Honestly, those statistics changed my life,” Grey Bull said.
The MMIP task force worked on researching cases of missing and murdered indigenous people in Wyoming and found 710 cases, most of which went unnoticed according to Greybull. She pointed out none of these cases received national attention, and most had little to no statewide or local publicity. This shows a stark contrast with how other cases are handled.
“As we’ve seen with the Gabby Petito case — not to take away from her family and their hardships and their mourning process — but her case is exactly how it’s supposed to be,” Grey Bull said. “Everybody should come to the forefront to find anybody — male, female, child or any ethnicity.”
While Grey Bull believes the biggest problem is lack of information, she also believes discrimination and racism play a part in how cases are handled. She has personally sat with families whose loved ones were missing and heard law enforcement downplay the character of the missing person, saying things like the person was just out partying and would be back later. For one particular case in her community, a week after the police investigator was dismissive of the report, the missing young girl’s body was found, Grey Bull said.
“I’ve worked with law enforcement and I have high respect for law enforcement,” Grey Bull added. But, she pointed out, “anybody who works on the investigation side of things will tell you the first 24-48 hours is crucial in finding somebody and getting boots on the ground. I just want to see more people get that sense of urgency and effort.”
The MMIP task force report also examined cases of missing and murdered white people and missing and murdered indigenous people and how those cases were reported in the media. The report found that many times stories about a missing white person focused on the person’s good background and what their family was known for, while stories about missing indigenous people often brought in irrelevant facts that put a darker outlook on the missing person. Grey Bull pointed out how the inequality in reporting doesn’t represent the equal justice that all people should have, regardless of their ethnicity.
Part of how Grey Bull hopes to address the problems faced by MMIP is by establishing better connections between everyone in Wyoming.
“I think it takes all of us to build more bridges,” Grey Bull said.
She encouraged those outside of the Wind River community to reach out to the tribes to learn more and build relationships. She also noted the tribes love to share their culture. One way they do so is through the Wind River Dancers, which Grey Bull and her family are a part of. Their group travels across Wyoming to share their traditions and their stories. Grey Bull also hopes events like the YWCA Silent Witness Initiative will continue to be held and to provide an opportunity to have conversations and make connections.
“I just think that’s how we’re going to build these bridges and break this racism and break this divide,” Grey Bull said. “The divide doesn’t help any of us.”
She pointed out one of her favorite quotes, which is from Martin Luther King Jr. — “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
“And if we can all just pick up that type of mentality,” Grey Bull said, “I think we’ll be better human beings living in the same state or counties.”
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