By Jon Huang
Mateo Montoya-Collis
Officer Montoya-Collis currently serves with the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office. He is a Colorado native from a military family and grew up in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood. He has played professional rugby, is an illustrator and was on the Olympic Development Team. He lives in El Paso County with his child.
On his assessment of current EPSO efforts to prevent crime
Montoya-Collis referenced the EPSO-involved FBI Southern Colorado Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force announced Aug. 27, commending the effort, but said he felt there was a lack of early intervention, education-based programs.
“We do need our task force (and) our arrests,” he said. “We need more jails and prisons; we’re missing the mark because who’s going to fill those prisons? It’s going to be your kids or my kids as we get older. We’re not changing policing, but we’re changing the resource allocation to more of a focal point of prevention.”
How do you balance the need to address both root causes and crimes?
Montoya-Collis emphasized the need for proper staffing and training to address perceptions of understaffing and long wait times for calls for service.
“We’ve got to quit looking at success being how many arrests we make,” he said.
He also emphasized the need to focus on education to reduce the number of victims.
“My game plan: We’re going to be proactive. You’ve got the potential victim, potential suspect. We’re going to teach them state law. Everybody knows we’re playing by the same rules, and people are going to make mistakes. However, if we have an educated populace that understands state law, the suspect now can make an educated decision not to victimize a neighbor, family member or friend. This isn’t being soft on crime. This is actually looking at the root causes.”
On career initiatives he is most proud of
Montoya-Collis highlighted his time on the Highlands Ranch Gang Intervention Team, where he actively engaged with individuals in the community. He also mentioned the Reading to Horse program, which in more than six years has enrolled 7,000 children and brought children together with law enforcement and community members to read to horses.
“Their context of what law enforcement is changes because now they’re looking at something that’s real. So, on the surface, it’s just going to be a literacy program … but it’s really about the relationship. You get a child who might be nervous around a police officer, and now they’re having the opportunity to really talk to them.”
For more information on the program, visit: For more info on the program check out: https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/arapahoe-county-sheriffs-office-mounted-patrol-reading-program
On a difficult career moment that led to personal change
Montoya-Collis responded to a call in his district in which a mother found her son dead by suicide. The deceased man was a former member of the military who struggled with depression. He had been divorced and, particularly poignantly for Montoya-Collis, had the same children’s Bible he had grown up with. The experience led him to educate himself on the issue.
“That’s when I reached out to one of my other buddies in the military and said … I need you to educate me so that when I’m talking to my friends and family who are in the military, I understand this. How can … I ground them to the point where they know they’re talking to a friend?”
On the impact of his visual arts background on his police career
Montoya-Collis said his artistic background has allowed him to see things from multiple perspectives and treat people with greater empathy.
“You start to pay attention to details. You can look at two different things or the same thing and get two different opinions, and get a different conversation going.”
For more on Officer Montoya-Collis, visit https://krdo.com/el-paso-county-sheriff-2026-primary/2026/06/17/mateo-montoya-collis/https://mateo4sheriff.com/
Sheriff Joe Roybal
Sheriff Roybal has been with EPSO for more than 30 years in various capacities. He is a Colorado Springs native who attended college locally. He is married and has five children.
Assessing EPSO’s efforts in preventing and addressing crime
“In my opinion, it hasn’t changed over time; I think we’ve gotten so big that it’s become harder. Back in the day, you had a police officer who worked a beat, that was his area … and you got to know the neighbors and the businesses. It’s not getting back to basics; it’s getting back to what was successful for law enforcement and developing and continuing that trust. It all begins with trust.”
Roybal said that two months ago, he began assigning patrol deputies alongside traffic deputies to specific districts to increase continuity and promote deeper community relationships. He highlighted the Neighborhood Watch program, which provides neighborhood captains with updates on crimes, EPSO efforts and mitigation measures, as well as National Night Out events, community gatherings hosted by citizens and regularly attended by EPSO staff, as initiatives designed to foster stronger community dialogue.
“I would rather educate and prevent a crime rather than solve it, because once we solve it, there’s a victim, and one of my pillars is reducing victims in the community,” he said.
What initiative from your last term are you most proud of?
“This is staffing. We changed the model on how we hire.”
Roybal said that in January 2023, at the advice of his human resources manager, the department streamlined the hiring process, allowing the department to reduce its deputy shortage from 44 positions to 22 positions above authorized staffing levels.
He said the changes allowed him to create permanent assignments for deputies and retain staff by reducing the number of upper-level staff and administrative positions to designate the aforementioned patrol and traffic deputy positions. Roybal said the changes have cut the attrition rate in half and helped maintain adequate staffing levels for the past year and a half.
If re-elected, what is one initiative you hope to further develop?
Roybal said the substation being built in Falcon is a priority. Deputies transporting detainees from Falcon to the county jail can spend several hours completing the trip. The substation will be a fully functioning police station, including holding cells, a sallyport and community rooms. (A sallyport at a jail is a secure, enclosed entryway — often resembling a large garage or fenced vehicular bay — that uses two or more interlocking doors or gates to control movement and prevent escapes.)
This will allow deputies to save time by dropping off detainees from northern and eastern El Paso County at the substation for later transport by jail deputies.
“The savings in time and economics we’re going to have — that goes right back into policing the community, addressing calls for service, meeting with the community, walking that beat and district and getting to know our neighbors will be game changing,” he said.
Where have you fallen short?
Roybal cited communication. Despite social media, press releases and regular weekly community meetings, he said the community has not been aware of many of his initiatives, including the substation and patrol deputy assignments.
“We have to meet people where they get their information, and so that’s something I’m disappointed in. I thought I had a plan, and it just didn’t work like I wanted it to work. I’ve got to ask people where they get their news and information from, and then when people tell us, do those things. I thought we were doing a good job, and it turns out we really weren’t.”
His assessment of EPSO’s gang and youth intervention efforts
Roybal highlighted EPSO’s School Resource Officer collaboration with school counselors to help children in need. He also discussed the department’s jail-based behavioral health program, which has been ongoing for several years, and GangNET intervention, which began within the past six months. Both programs focus on individuals in jail.
GangNET, a software application, functions as a specialized intelligence unit and database designed to identify, document and track street gang members, associates, symbols and gang-related criminal activity.
For more on Sheriff Roybal, visit https://krdo.com/el-paso-county-sheriff-2026-primary/2026/06/19/joe-roybal/https://www.roybalforsheriff.com/
