NEDERLAND — We all want to feel safe in our homes and when we are driving on our roads. We want peace of mind.

There are times when the worst of human behavior wanders into our backyards and onto the roads we drive everyday. We then feel vulnerable and even powerless. 

That’s where he comes in: The Division Chief, Jason Oehlkers, hailing from the FBI National Academy in Leadership, University of Virginia Master of Public Safety, and Colorado State University Global Leadership program, is now at Boulder County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO). He was kind and professional enough to interview with The Mountain-Ear. 

“We’re here,” Oehlkers said. “We’re a service organization. Our service is public safety. We’re here to deliver that service.

“In a 740-square-mile county, we don’t know everything that’s going on. We may not know about the campfire behind your house, so feel free to call. We have to have community involvement.”

Oehlkers spoke about dispatch, after I brought up that we have called in about situations on our property. 

“They have at least a dozen computer applications they’re logged into at any given time, and six monitors…showing different things. They’ve got calls ringing off the hook," he said. "The number of calls they get goes up every year as we get more people. It’s a challenging job.”

Calling dispatch is like waving your arms frantically to pull someone onto the side of the road in a plea for help. Who are the people involved in this intense job?

“It depends on the individual, but they train about a year," Oehlkers said. "In call-taking, fire, law, then data channels. Then, new dispatchers are learning what it’s like to answer calls, from speeding motorists to a suicide-in-progress.

“Call 911 if there’s a true emergency,” he clarified. “Call dispatch for when not. And then, recognize that dispatch is not like 411—don’t call us for the score of the football game.”

I thought of the day my husband and I returned home from town. We were unloading groceries and dogs, when shots rang overhead. I called 911.

On balance, it’s hard to feel protected in a community where the number of speeding motorists and moving violations is clearly on the rise. 

“We’ve had 8,000 calls for service so far this year,” Oehlkers reported. “We contract with the Forest Service for the busy months. We contract with the Town of Nederland. We have two deputies assigned to the mountains, 24/7.” 

“They spend a lot of time driving; they have a lot of geography to cover in the mountains,” Oehlkers said.

We all see the adrenaline junkies on the crotch rockets flying over the double-yellow line as though it never existed. How does BCSO handle these situations?

The deputies undertake a risk analysis when approaching such a scenario. The entire situation, or gestalt, is taken into account, Oehlkers said. “At some point, the deputy has to look and say, ‘Is it worth trying to stop this car or motorcycle?’ 

“Boulder Canyon, curvy roads, a deputy behind ten other vehicles in front of them. They see a motorcycle passing on the double-yellow and ask, ‘Is it worth turning on the lights, getting everybody to pull over, trying to catch a motorcycle that’ll drive up the canyon faster than a police car will?’

“You gotta look at that too, saying, ‘That guy needs to be stopped, but is it worth creating all this other chaos to try and do it?’”

Feeling helplessness, vulnerability, and powerlessness? Oehlkers gave me hope.

“Some deputies are seeing some of these motorcycles at the gas station or restaurants in town, and they say, ‘I’m gonna get the license plates….I look at the rider, and then 20 minutes later, there’s a complaint.’”

Oehlkers reaffirmed that deputies are paying more attention and taking the time to do just that. 

There are other ways to address the onslaught of offending thrill-seekers plaguing our community and threatening our lives. Video evidence backed up by personal court appearance of an offender timely caught while still out on the road. It means calling dispatch as soon as possible, and hoping nobody is consuming their time by inquiring into the reason for heavy traffic on US 36.

If you happen to need law enforcement on a Friday night, they might come fresh from keeping the acoustical peace at the Gold Hill Inn. Perhaps they’ll be coming from breaking up a raucous student party on Flagstaff Mountain, or calming down a crying student who’s had her purse stolen out of the car where she left it on the front seat before she set off on the overlook trails. Or the deputy might be driving down the Peak to Peak from Ward after tending to bear break-ins. 

Oehlkers said within the last month, they’ve been tending to more calls down on the flats for our starving bruin friends than ever before, mostly owing to the fact that there are more people to call them in than there are mountain folks otherwise enchanted by their appearance.

During times of wildfire danger and burn bans, the deputies are busy tending to illegal campfires, accompanying firemen for personal safety in the presence of a violation, or ensuring no one overstays the 14-day limit on Forest Service land. Or asking them to vacate private property.

A deputy might be answering calls for service in Superior, patrolling around the four-wheel-drive roads in the Roosevelt National Forest, or just talking to Billy at the County Transfer Station. An SRO, or School Resource Officer, may be talking with students about the mountain lions they saw at lunchtime, the same ones the deputies saw under thermal drone view while out on field training. 

With 100 deputies spread across the county and seven more waiting in the training wings, they are still, despite the daily flood of calls in our society, here to serve.

Did Oehlkers appreciate that far too often, people come up from the plains to alleviate the stress born of the ills of urbanity, or just for the sense of freedom from laws and civility? 

“With that district, it’s unfortunate, sometimes people go up to the mountains with the intent of doing bad things," he said. "One of our mountain deputies says it’s always better if we were to find them first, versus someone in the community just driving down the road. 

“What he was saying—let’s just try and hit as much of our district as we can throughout the week—so the car that’s been abandoned isn’t there for a month before we finally find it.”

Do we wish they could do more? Of course. And with a $13 million County budget cut for both 2025 and 2026, they’ve had layoffs and shifts in job responsibility. Despite these challenges, they remain dedicated.

“I hear the concerns that you and different members of the community have. All of that is important," Oehlkers said. "Whether it’s the barking dog at three in the morning, or the plane that just crashed — everything is important. I truly wish I had the staffing, the ability, to say, ‘Don’t speed in this area. Be careful while you’re flying. Don’t leave your dog outside all night long to be eaten by a mountain lion.’”

Having heard the point of view of this impressive official, this reporter felt informed and appreciative of the efforts our Sheriff’s Department puts forward to make Boulder County residents feel safer and more protected — and more understanding when those efforts don’t quite meet our expectations.

Boulder County Dispatch phone number is 303-441-4444.