AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
A crisis of violence. That's how the White House has described the disproportionate rates of assault, abduction and murder faced by Native Americans in the U.S. Alaska is one of the states with the highest rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Last month, the state's Department of Public Safety hired its first investigator to focus specifically on this. Her name is Anne Sears. She was the first Alaska Native woman to serve as an Alaska state trooper.
ANNE SEARS: My work as a trooper working in rural Alaska for 15 years, being an Indigenous woman raised in rural Alaska, kind of all led to this job.
