On April 29, the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office was awarded a 2024 Persons Who Wander grant from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to help with locating missing people.

Sheriff Steve Nowlin said that the funds will be used to help train two more deputies as drone pilots and get them FAA certified for the county. The drones, which the county has had since 2018, have infrared capabilities that enable night searches and the ability to find people in heavily forested areas.

After the deputies have their license, it will have to be renewed annually. They will also undergo multiple hours of online class and hands-on training.

Right now, Detective Allen Phelps is the Sheriff Office’s only drone pilot.

“Having the capability of having more than one drone pilot helps when we need to use two at the same time,” Nowlin said. “We use them a lot on search and rescues, and they’ve been successful.”

Nowlin shared that a young autistic boy who lives outside Cortez tends to wander away from home, but they’ve been able to deploy their drones and find him in an hour or so.

Another instance occurred when a missing person was reported outside of La Plata County in May 2023.

A hiker found a vehicle and reported the missing person.

“We had to do a search and it was getting late, so I sent the drone pilot up with the drone to start searching while search and rescue was getting organized,” Nowlin said. “We found that individual. He was deceased, it ended up being a suicide, but we found him in the forest with this drone. It helps and every missing person or search and rescue mission that I can possibly do, I send a drone up.”

Nowlin added that the drones can cover more area in a faster amount of time, allowing them to find missing people faster.

“The drones save a lot of time and cover more area,” Nowlin said. “This has been such a benefit for officer safety and crime scene documentation too. It can definitely save somebody’s life. It’s video recording at the same time that it’s flying, and at night it’s infrared, so it picks up heat signatures and makes it fast trying to find a live person.”

Sheriff Nowlin expressed his gratefulness for the grant money to train more drone pilots.

“I was very fortunate to be able to have these training dollars, this opportunity from the Department of Criminal Justice and CBI to do that because it’s for people who wander and I’ll tell you what, when we have Alzheimer’s folks or elderly or young children such as this autistic child, time is pretty critical. They can cover a lot of area in a short amount of time, and they can really mean the difference between life and death,” Nowlin said.

In 2022, legislation was passed that “enhanced efforts to provide assistance to Colorado families of people who wander, along with the availability of state-sponsored grants to assist local governments with recovery programs.”

According to a news release from CBI, the purpose of this grant program is to help provide funding to local governments and law enforcement agencies in locating people who have medical conditions such as Alzheimer’s and dementia, as well as those with autism, brain injuries and other developmental, cognitive, neurological or chromosomal disorders.

“We are excited to be able to provide families and others with a convenient resource for information related to people who wander through a comprehensive website and launch of the grant program,” said CBI Director Chris Schaefer.

Grant recipients are encouraged to create recovery programs and help provide other resources to help increase the chance of saving the lives of people who are lost or missing.

The Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office was awarded $2,635, and other agencies that received grants from the program include the Aurora Police Department, Logan County, Otero County, Brush Police Department and the Gunnison Police Department.

More information about the Persons Who Wander grant program can be found online at www.cbi.colorado.gov/persons-who-wander.