Local activist Lisa Tiger’s world changed overnight in 2007 when she received a phone call telling her that her 18-year-old daughter, Shelleigh Poor Bear, had been murdered by her boyfriend. That boyfriend, who was convicted in the case in 2009, had planned the kidnapping of Poor Bear, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, for weeks before he took her to a motel room and stabbed her more than 10 times in the presence of their 10-month-old baby.
“It was devastating,” Tiger said. “Never in my life had I expected to get a call like that.”
Unfortunately, Poor Bear’s death was not an isolated incident. Native American women are disproportionately affected by violence: According to the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, 1 in 2 Native women and girls is a victim of some form of sexual violence. And based on 2017 data from the FBI, about 1.8 percent of people reported as missing in the United States are Native. >>> READ MORE