This week on The Impact:
First you’ll hear from the head of a new cold case unit focused on investigations involving missing and murdered indigenous women, children, and men.
“If you commit a crime in the city of Olympia as an example, then the city of Olympia has jurisdiction. If a crime is committed on a reservation, it’s not as clear cut. Sometimes the tribal police have jurisdiction. Sometimes the federal investigators have jurisdiction. And then another example where it can be compounding is that if it is a tribal member, but the crime is committed off the reservation and so now you have a couple different law enforcement agencies that are going to be part of that. And all of that, delays response to investigations,” said Brian George, Chief Investigator MMIWP Cold Case Unit. “This work is personal. And it is for the investigators, too. They want to bring justice. They want to bring closure to the families that are impacted by, the tragedies that are taking place.”
Then you’ll hear about environmental career building opportunities in the Washington Conservation Corps from the new director of the organization.
“I just worked for almost 20 years at a regional fisheries enhancement group in Washington state, and we actually had a work crew that did restoration work. And every year the five graduates from our crew had made contacts with community organization nations and agencies. And very often they would move right into a professional job,” said WCC Director Rebecca Benjamin. “We do all the job training that you need. There are several opportunities a year to go to a special all week training, and you get to pick and choose different training that interests you. Could be wilderness first aid. Might be chainsaw work. There’s all sorts of different things that you can learn on the job. “
We’ll also highlight the controversial plan to kill thousands of barred owls to save northern spotted owls in the northwest.
The full episode is available here: