The Colorado Department of Public Safety recently announced that it has hired 30-year law enforcement veteran Arron Julian to head the newly formed Office of Liaison for Missing or Murdered Indigenous Relatives.
The position was created as part of a bill that passed earlier this year during the State Legislative Session. The new role will serve as a liaison to tribal nations and indigenous communities in the state, but with a focus on issues relating to missing or murdered indigenous people.
“I’m Native American,” Julian said to KUNC’s Michael Lyle. “I’ve been an advocate for the Native community most of my life. I love helping victims and giving them a voice when they no longer have it.”
Despite having been in the role for less than two weeks, Julian and his team are already working on an active case in the southern part of Colorado.
A woman from the Southern Ute Tribe was reported missing, so the new task force brought in resources from the state to assist.
Julian said that it’ll be a part of the task force's work to figure out which cases could fall through the cracks or look into an investigation that doesn’t seem to be moving forward.
“It’s going to be my job to make contact and liaison with the agency, the community and the victim’s family to make sure we get a resolution and do the best we can serve our Native communities across the state,” he said.
Julian has helped launch a new pilot program that teaches future police officers how to best handle cases related to missing Indigenous people.
“Once it gets approved, it’s going to be part of the basic police academy training across the state, so that every new police officer for that next future generation will be part of this so that law enforcement is more empathetic, more understanding and more culturally sensitive to the Native community,” he said.
