Montana Attorney General Tim Fox announced his agency will host a second missing persons training, this time for people living and working in eastern Montana.
Law enforcement and community members will have a chance to learn about how to help find missing people on October 16 in Billings.
It’ll be the second time Montana’s Department of Justice has hosted a public training session on things like how to file a missing persons report and the role of different databases. Like the last session held in Helena this June, the upcoming training will focus on cases of missing indgenous people.
Native people in Montana tend to go missing at rates that outpace their share of the state population.
Hollie Mackey, a Northern Cheyenne education professor at North Dakota State University, was the keynote speaker at the Helena training.
She says an even split of about 120 law enforcement agents and community members attended.
"When we have these two groups, these two sides coming together to learn from one another, we’re hoping to develop a better understanding of each other but then really heal a lot of wounds," Mackey said.
She says the parties hardly mingled, not even on breaks, and hopes that there’s more crossover this time.
A spokesperson from the Montana Department of Justice says that law enforcement and the public will attend separate events but get to share meals and breaks.
