When Aaron Mark Bradley, a 68-year-old citizen of the Navajo Nation, went missing one day last summer in northern Arizona, there were alarming signs at his home about what might have happened to him. His front door was open, a window was broken, and essential items were left behind.
Bradley was last seen at a convenience store he frequented in the small reservation town of Shonto on Sept. 6.
The missing person flyer for Aaron Mark Bradley, shared by his daughter, Kayla Benally, during the task force meeting. (Image via NM In Depth) His daughter, Kayla Benally, an Albuquerque resident, drove about an hour to Acoma Pueblo for a Friday meeting of the New Mexico Department of Justice’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Task Force to raise awareness about her father’s disappearance.
Native people have the highest average missing persons rate in New Mexico, according to a National Institute of Justice-funded study published last year.
Benally also made the trip to share what’s been helpful to her. She got in touch, she said, with the Navajo Nation’s task force and a Diné coalition. They connected her with counseling services and a search and rescue workshop, among other resources that have “given our family a circle of support so we don’t feel as alone as we did before,” Benally said.
State lawmakers funded efforts related to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people during this year’s legislative session, Rep. Charlotte Little, an Albuquerque Democrat from San Felipe Pueblo, said during Friday’s meeting. That includes appropriations to the Office of the Medical Investigator for testing human remains and the Crime Victims Reparation Commission, she said.
The state budget also gives the task force more time to spend what’s left of $200,000 set aside during a previous session for its operations. Little said that line item should be funded year-over-year rather than as a one-time appropriation.
The task force met first in late 2024. The Legislature called on the attorney general to create the group after New Mexico In Depth reported Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration had disbanded another task force focused on the crisis in 2023, upsetting members and affected families.
During Friday’s meeting, Little mentioned a House bill that would have given citizens of federally recognized tribes the option to request a “Native American” mark on their state-issued IDs.
On top of responding to fears about federal agents detaining Native people, the bill’s sponsors said it would strengthen the state’s Turquoise Alert. Police are required to verify that a missing person is enrolled or eligible for enrollment in a federally or state recognized tribe before issuing an alert, and the optional designation would have sped up that process, the sponsors argued. But the bill stalled in the Senate.
The task force’s legislative subcommittee, of which Little is a member, will be exploring potential legislation and funding recommendations throughout the year, she said. And the task force is working to update the state’s response plan, issued by the old group in 2022, by the end of the year.
“We’re all looking for the day that we don’t have to do this anymore, but until that time, we’re going to focus our efforts towards getting the funding that’s needed,” Little said.
