Missing, murdered Native American cases delayed as police struggle to work together

The most important part of 28-year-old Brandon Hummel’s life was his two children, according to his mother.

“I know in my heart he’s probably not alive anymore because he never would’ve stayed away from those kids this long, or me,” Deana Floyd said.

Floyd left Hummel, a Choctaw citizen, and her other son at home for a trip out of town in January 2024. Hummel stayed in Atoka while his brother reported going to the movies in Ada. When the family returned, Hummel had vanished.

“Yeah, he made mistakes, but through it all, he loved them kids,” Floyd said. “He was just a down-to-earth guy. Even when he got in trouble with the police before, they all liked him. It wasn’t like he was a bad guy or anything, he just had some issues that he got in trouble for.”

Hummel had a track record of leaving home without a lot of communication, so Floyd didn’t contact authorities to report him missing until a month passed. What followed, she said, was a disorganized and lackluster performance from law enforcement resistant to cooperation.

The first organization involved in the search for Hummel was the Atoka County Sheriff. Floyd said the agency initially responded, but passed the case to Choctaw Lighthorse police without further involvement. That was something new, Floyd said, because the sheriff helped the family before.

“When [Brandon] was in his addiction, they didn’t have a problem coming out and arresting him and taking him to jail,” Floyd said. “He was in their jail before.”

Things changed in Oklahoma after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the McGirt case. That 2020 decision drastically altered the state’s legal landscape, finding much of the eastern portion to be reservation land. As a result, cases that the state would have previously handled were scheduled for tribal or federal courts.

“I think this law that they passed is ridiculous,” Floyd said. “They just want to shove everything over to the [Bureau of Indian Affairs] or the Lighthorse. If they’re Indian, they want nothing to do with it.”

Atoka County Sheriff Kody Simpson was elected last summer, defeating the incumbent after Hummel’s disappearance. Simpson said relations between his office and the Choctaw Nation have improved and it’s no longer policy that cases be sent without follow-up to the tribe.

“I hate to say this, but it’s the truth: in the municipal police and the county sheriff’s offices, it is a way to be lazy,” Simpson said. “It’s absolutely what it boils down to, 100%. They don’t want to deal with the call; they don’t want to deal with any call. The municipalities and the county sheriff’s offices that hand every call off, for tribal citizens, it is a way to be lazy.”

Under the purview of the Lighthorse police, Hummel’s case languished, Floyd said. They weren’t interested in helping because of Hummel’s criminal record. In a written statement, Lighthorse police denied negligence, saying it “investigated and followed local leads diligently for a year before the remaining leads were identified to be individuals located out of the state.”

Lighthorse eventually requested help from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and the BIA. Floyd said the first BIA agent in charge left without an explanation. His replacement, who is based in Tennessee due to a staff shortage in Oklahoma, has been scarce.

The BIA did not respond to requests for information.

Advocates note similar breakdowns in procedures and relationships. The Northeastern Oklahoma Indigenous Safety & Education advocacy network creates reports for cases it handles. Last year, the group was involved in the search for Trey Glass, a 19-year-old United Keetoowah Band member found dead in a well belonging to a former Kansas, Oklahoma police chief.

In its report on Glass, NOISE noted a tangle of issues, including a delay before tribal authorities were notified of Glass’ disappearance by the family, not the police.

“Much of the confusion could have been delayed, and more resources could have been deployed if the Kansas PD had some foundational knowledge of operating a police department within the exterior boundaries of the Cherokee Nation Reservation,” the NOISE report stated.

The confusion was compounded by an intertribal dispute. Because Glass’ family is UKB, they chose to contact their tribe for help, but the UKB and the Cherokee Nation are at odds over a recent opinion that they legally share the same reservation. The initial search for Glass was a “cluster,” according to the report, as the UKB, the Cherokee Nation and the police tried to sort out who was in charge.

Chaos, apathy and uncooperative interagency behavior are not uncommon in missing or murdered Native cases such as Hummel’s and Glass’. That’s according to Karrisa Newkirk, president and founder of Missing Murdered Indigenous Women Oklahoma, who said it can be difficult to get law enforcement at any level across the state involved, even in violent emergencies.

“There’s been many domestic violence cases too,” Newkirk said. “So there’s been many times when someone has called because of a domestic violence incident and the city police are like, ‘Oh, you’re tribal? You’re going to have to call tribal police.’ Even though they’re in the city limits. And when you’re in a time of need, that’s not something you want to hear.”

Newkirk, who also collaborates with the Department of Justice, said responses improve if a cross-deputization agreement is in place, but the responsibility for contacting tribal police often still falls on the shoulders of victims, which breeds distrust and confusion.

“I can’t tell you how many times I have been told, ‘Well, they said this, but I was so flustered in the moment, I didn’t do it. I called you,’” Newkirk said.

Newkirk advocates for a range of solutions, including greater resources for the BIA, continued involvement of a responding officer and a standardized approach to police notifying tribes of arrests.

“They probably don’t have a manual, but I really do think there needs to be some kind of workflow,” she said. “Like, ‘Oh, this is a tribal member. How many hours do we have to contact the tribal authority?’” Newkirk also said agencies that work together should have biweekly check-ins, networking events and annual training.

“A lot of these small PDs don’t even have proper training in human trafficking, or missing children, or even murder cases,” Newkirk said. “It should not take 10 hours to issue an AMBER Alert when it meets all the criteria. Training is a necessity.”

In the meantime, Deana Floyd and other families with missing loved ones wait.

“It’s a nightmare when you don’t know where your child is,” she said. “At this point, I don’t care about anything anymore, except for finding him.”

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