Director Named to Lead Minnesota’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office

ST. PAUL (KDLM) – The director of Minnesota’s new Office of Missing And Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) has been named.

Juliet Rudie, a tribal member of the Lower Sioux Indian Community and lifelong Minnesota resident, will lead the first office of its kind in the nation. The MMIR office will be housed in the Department of Public Safety Office of Justice Programs (DPS-OJP) and will focus on missing and murdered Indigenous relatives. The office will work with the 11 sovereign tribal nations in Minnesota including White Earth; federal, state, and local law enforcement; federal and state agencies; and community-based organizations and advocates. Additional staff for the office will be hired in the coming weeks.

The first-in-the-nation MMIR office was a recommendation of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s Task Force, which found that while Native Americans make up 1 percent of Minnesota’s population, they account for approximately 9 percent of all murdered girls and women in the state during the last decade. Anywhere from 27 to 54 Indigenous women and girls were missing in Minnesota in any given month from 2012 to 2020.