How Native American police are fighting the crisis of missing people

Sgt. Kathleen Lucero poses for a picture inside her office at the Isleta Police Department in Isleta Pueblo, New Mexico, U.S., May 19, 2023. REUTERS/Adria Malcolm

ISLETA PUEBLO, N.M. (Reuters) - As Detective Kathleen Lucero drives along a dirt road towards the Manzano mountains east of her New Mexico Native American village, she recalls the time earlier in her career when an elder told his family he was heading this way to water his cows. He didn’t come back.

It was back in 2009 when Lucero was a patrol officer, learning how to stop her people becoming part of the U.S. epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women and relatives (MMIWR).