The Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office is preparing to shift its narcotics enforcement efforts from the former local partnership between it and the Cortez Police Department to a regional High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program-funded team based in Durango.
Montezuma County Undersheriff and sheriff candidate Tyson Cox said the Southwest Drug Task Force is a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program that includes La Plata County, the Durango Police Department, Bayfield, Ignacio, Cortez Police Department and, soon, the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office.
“The truth of it is that our problems over here are their problems over there,” Cox told The Journal. “The drug trafficking problem is regional, not city specific or area specific, and it helps us with resources as far as personnel.”
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, HIDTA is a program that was created by Congress and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. This grant program provides assistance to agencies that are “determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions” in the U.S.
Sheriff Steve Nowlin, Cox said, is expected to sign the memorandum of understanding with the task force soon. The change comes after the Montezuma-Cortez Narcotics Investigation Team was – according to the sheriff’s office – disbanded in July. In this team format, the sheriff’s office and Cortez PD worked together to cripple the drug trafficking taking place in the county.
Sheriff’s Office Detective Sgt. Victor Galarza, who served on the narcotics investigation team, is leaving Montezuma County. Cox shared that the sheriff’s office is working on assigning a detective to the regional team. Due to being understaffed, the assignment of a detective is expected to take one to two months.
Cox said candidates for the position will need strong knowledge of Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure law, an investigative background, proficiency in writing arrest and search warrants and experience handling larger cases.
He noted that the arrangement with the regional task force will allow local agencies additional personnel for larger operations without taking the detectives away from the county. The detectives from MCSO and Cortez PD will still retain office space in the county and continue focusing on drug crimes and drug organizations in Cortez and Montezuma County.
The task force’s regional headquarters is in Durango, and the grant managed by the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office will cover the task force supervisor’s costs and provide money for undercover drug operations, but individual agencies will still continue to pay for their own personnel.
Cox emphasized that the drug problem is the county’s biggest problem, saying it is causing other crimes, such as property and persons crimes, to increase.
When Cox becomes sheriff, he will have a two-pronged approach to drugs. The first is continued participation in the regional task force to target distribution networks and to establish a K-9 unit.
He hopes to launch the K-9 program with one dog in 2027, pending approval from the Montezuma County Board of Commissioners, and to potentially add a second K-9 in 2028 if the results with one dog are favorable.
“If I can get that up and running, then we can tackle it at two ends,” Cox said. “Not only at the distribution level with the Southwest Drug Task Force, but also at the user end by doing drug interdiction and stuff like that.”
He added that the sheriff’s office last operated a K-9 unit roughly 14 years ago.
“Whether it’s Sheriff Nowlin’s administration currently or my administration in the future, we recognize take we have a drug problem, and we are working hard to deal with that, make a dent and make this community as safe as possible,” Cox said.
bduran@the-journal.com
