HB 197 Sponsor Rep. Joseph Sanchez, D-Alcalde
By MARAGET O’HARA
The Santa Fe New Mexican
Tangerine Bolen has become an unofficial expert in organizing civilian searches for missing elders in the last year.
In March 2024, she coordinated a search for Esther Barnes, a 98-year-old who walked away from Las Soleras Senior Living. Bolen and her fellow searchers ultimately found Barnes’ body about a half-mile from the facility.
And she helped organize searches earlier this year for 80-year-old Jose Orozco-Montijo, a man with dementia who in January wandered away from his family’s home in Eldorado. Despite extensive searching, he still hasn’t been found.
In both cases, Bolen urged changes to New Mexico’s Silver Alert system, arguing it had failed both Barnes and Orozco-Montijo.
“Unfortunately, our public safety systems in the state of New Mexico when it comes to elders who go missing are hugely inadequate and need major fixing,” she said in an interview.
Bolen added, “I wouldn’t place the blame for that on any single agency or department. I think the gaps and the challenges go across all points of access in the public safety system.”
This legislative session, she may get her wish.
Lawmakers are considering a handful of bills related to Silver Alerts, missing elders and search and rescue procedures.
House Bill 197, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Sanchez, D-Alcalde, would expand the Silver Alert definition to include anyone the reporter believes displays signs of dementia or other cognitive decline or impairment.
“If you’re familiar with the Amber Alert, this is similar, but it’s for people that suffer from dementia or Alzheimer’s or any other issues with cognitive decline,” Sanchez said in an interview.
Meanwhile, Senate Bill 353, sponsored by Sens. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, and Shannon Pinto, D-Tohatchi, pushes for speedier dispatching of search and rescue personnel.
So far, both bills have made it through initial committees but not yet been heard on the House or Senate floor.
House Bill 301, a third proposal sponsored by Rep. Martin Zamora, R-Clovis, would require text messages alerting residents to the issuance of a Silver Alert, though it hasn’t gotten a hearing yet and Zamora told The New Mexican the bill is on hold “for now”.
But that, too, would be a welcome change for Bolen, who said adults with dementia are in many cases as vulnerable as children — meaning Silver Alerts merit the same urgent response as Amber Alerts.
“We need to treat them with the same level of urgency that we would treat children, unless we are OK with disposing of seniors in our community,” Bolen said.
Expanding the alerts
Silver Alerts were established through legislation in 2013, with the state Department of Public Safety responsible for issuing the alerts in certain circumstances.
Right now, Silver Alerts are dependent on three criteria, Wilson Silver, a spokesperson for the department wrote in an email: The individual must be missing, at least 50 years old and exhibiting “an irreversible deterioration of intellectual faculties such as Alzheimer’s disease, dementia or another degenerative brain disorder or a brain injury.”
In HB 197, Sanchez is proposing an expansion to the third criterion, with the text of the bill allowing anyone “who the reporter believes displays signs or symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia, cognitive decline or impairment, regardless of age” to qualify for a Silver Alert.
This definition was a key issue in Esther Barnes’ case, during which Bolen and family membersargued a Silver Alert should have been initiated but wasn’t because Barnes did not have a formal dementia diagnosis.
“The reason for this amendment is to loosen the language,” Sanchez said. “That way, if someone has signs of cognitive decline, it’ll make the system more available to them.”
Bolen said HB 197 is consistent with the policy changes she requested after leading some search efforts for Barnes. She wanted the Silver Alert “to encompass the whole range of cognitive deficits”.
Should the bill pass, updated training will be a critical piece of putting it into action, she added.
“Everybody needs to be educated in what cognitive decline or issues can look like — when it’s an elderly person in particular because that’s where we’ve been, I guess, failing more acutely,” Bolen said.
Silver said the department “cannot give a perspective” on HB 197 since it has not yet passed.
Getting search and rescue involved
The idea behind Senate Bill 353 came from search and rescue officials like Teal Harbin, a nurse, wilderness paramedic and medical coordinator for New Mexico Search and Rescue from Albuquerque.
In her years of service with New Mexico Search and Rescue, Harbin said she’s encountered persistent dispatch issues: At times, law enforcement or fire department personnel attempt to tackle missions that might be more suitable for search and rescue.
Responses from police and firefighters are a good thing, but, she said, “The problem is, when they’re trying to do it completely by themselves, there’s a lot of risk involved.”
If passed, SB 353 would create standardized criteria to “promptly notify” search and rescue personnel, changes Harbin said would trigger calls to search and rescue as soon as certain criteria are met.
“You call the state police so they can dispatch search and rescue right away … so that we get that extra capacity going to try to find and help that person immediately,” Steinborn told the Senate Tax, Business and Transportation Committee on Tuesday.
The bill would go into effect in January 2026 to allow for time to train, Steinborn added.
Bolen said she supports the proposal.
“We want to see better delineation of who does what, when and where,” she said.
Policy changes are essential, she argued — but searches for both Barnes and Orozco-Montijo revealed something encouraging about Santa Fe.
“The outpouring of support and kindness has been one of the most heartwarming things I’ve seen since I’ve lived here,” Bolen said. “It has restored some of my own faith in who we can be as people together in these very turbulent times.”