When Maia Yang’s niece Amarie Alowonle was shot at Sanborn Park in Robbinsdale in May 2025, the family was thrust into a grief they had never prepared for. Amarie was 19 years old. She died a week later from her injuries. Nearly a year later, no one has been arrested.
In the aftermath, Yang did what many families in crisis do, she searched. She Googled resources, advocates, anyone who could help her sister Tatiana Kilgore navigate the impossible weight of losing a child to violence. That search led her to the Office of Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls.
“I reached out to them,” Yang said. “Amarie, she was Black, Native, I was like, wow, this would be perfect for them to step in and know about her story.”
The office, established by the Minnesota Legislature, is one of the few of its kind in the country. Led by Director Kaleena Burkes and a six-person team, it was created to address a crisis that has long existed in the shadows: the disproportionate rates at which Black women and girls go missing, are harmed and are killed, and the systemic failures that have allowed those cases to go unresolved and underreported.
This Monday, the office is hosting its 2026 Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls Day on the Hill. A day of action, remembrance and truth-telling at the Minnesota State Capitol. Tatiana Kilgore, Amarie’s mother, will be among those speaking.
For Burkes, the day represents both a milestone and a call to action.
“This year’s Day on the Hill is focused on awareness, visibility and truth-telling,” Burkes said. “We are working to elevate the reality of the violence Black women and girls are navigating, while centering the voices of impacted families.”
Since opening, the office has faced significant challenges. Among them is simply making people aware it exists, and that the epidemic it was created to address is real.
“There is still a gap in understanding the realities Black women and girls face,” Burkes said. “And as a six-person team, we are balancing community outreach, training, collaboration and direct family support, all without a national blueprint to follow.”
A second barrier is data. The office does not yet have direct access to law enforcement systems and missing persons data, making it difficult to fully map the scope of the crisis. And then there is the media.
“‘Missing White Woman Syndrome’ is real,” Burkes said. “Many people can name a missing white woman from recent years, but far fewer can name a missing Black woman or girl. That disparity impacts urgency, resources and outcomes.”
For Amarie’s family, that disparity has been painfully personal. Yang said that as other high-profile cases captured public attention in the months after Amarie’s death, their efforts to keep her name visible became even harder.
“It just kind of took away from Amarie’s case,” Kilgore said.
The family has had to do much of the legwork themselves, writing letters, contacting representatives, organizing a vigil, pushing for a reward. The office helped support the vigil and contributed to the reward fund, and staff will now attend an upcoming meeting with Robbinsdale Police and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
“There’s no other nonprofit group that even supported us the way they have,” Yang said. “They are doing a really good job.”
But both women are clear that more is needed, not just from the office, but from the broader community and from law enforcement. Robbinsdale Police, they said, are a small department unaccustomed to homicide investigations. In the first two months after Amarie’s death, Yang said, no witnesses were questioned.
“They didn’t even question nobody in the first two months,” Kilgore said. “That was very disappointing.”
Kilgore also called for more community resources like programs, mental health support and pathways for families who have no road map for what they are going through.
“Nobody wakes up like, ‘I don’t think my kid’s gonna get murdered today,'” Kilgore said. “You don’t have a road map to that. But what are some things and precautions and procedures for people that experience this?”
Director Burkes echoed that call, stressing that the office is working to build an advisory board rooted in lived experience, made up of community members, survivors and victims’ families, to shape its direction going forward.
“What we’ve learned, time and time again, is that women and girls have been telling their stories for decades,” Burkes said. “The difference now is that someone is finally listening, and that must continue.”
As Monday’s Day on the Hill approaches, Yang and Kilgore are hoping Amarie’s story reaches someone who knows something.
“Keep putting her name out there so that she’s not forgotten,” Kilgore said. “She’s not a statistic. She’s not swept under a rug. We want justice.”
Anyone with information about Amarie Alowonle’s death is urged to contact the Robbinsdale Police Department at (763) 531-1220.
The 2026 Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls Day on the Hill takes place Monday, April 13, at the Minnesota State Capitol.
Jasmine McBride welcomes reader responses at jmcbride@spokesman-recorder.com.