A 16-year-old girl last seen in Lakewood, Colorado has triggered a statewide Missing Indigenous Person Alert, with police asking anyone who has seen her to call 911 immediately. Jordan Tafoya, who is affiliated with the Northern Arapaho Tribe, was last seen Monday, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation described her as a 16-year-old Indigenous female standing 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighing about 140 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
According to The Denver Post, Tafoya was last seen wearing grey sweatpants and a blue hoodie with a colorful decal on the front. The alert did not specify exactly where in Lakewood she was last seen. The Lakewood Police Department is asking anyone with information to call 303-980-7300, while the public has also been urged to dial 911 if they spot her.
A Pattern of Disappearances Across Denver
This is not the first time Tafoya has gone missing. As previously reported by CBS News, she was the subject of multiple prior Missing Indigenous Person Alerts, including one in April 2023 when she disappeared in Denver at age 13, another in June 2023 when she went missing for 25 days before being located safe, and a third in February 2024 after she vanished from Denver International Airport. In each of those cases, the earlier alerts were canceled once law enforcement confirmed she had been safely located.
The latest activation falls under Colorado's Missing Indigenous Person Alert program, created under Senate Bill 22-150, which requires local police to notify the Colorado Bureau of Investigation within two hours when a missing child is Indigenous — compared with an eight-hour window for missing adults, according to the Colorado General Assembly. Under Colorado Revised Statutes § 24-33.5-431, the investigating agency must confirm the missing person is Indigenous, disappeared within the state, and faces credible risk to their health or safety before the alert can be issued, per the Legal Information Institute.
How the Alert Spreads and What Happens Next
Once the Colorado Bureau of Investigation approves an alert, it goes out rapidly across statewide law enforcement networks, local television and radio stations, and Colorado Department of Transportation digital highway message boards, the bureau has said. Colorado launched the Missing Indigenous Person Alert system on December 30, 2022, making it only the second state in the nation after Washington to create a dedicated emergency notification system for missing Native Americans, following years of grassroots advocacy from Indigenous organizers, according to The Journal.
Statewide data compiled by the MMIR Task Force of Colorado shows the system has largely worked as intended: of 220 alerts activated between December 2022 and April 2026, 203 individuals were located safe, with most found within a week of the alert going out. Families and members of the public can also report tips through Colorado's dedicated Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives hotline at 833-900-6647, which operates 24/7 under the state's Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and routes information directly to assigned investigators.
Ties to the Northern Arapaho Tribe
Tafoya's affiliation with the Northern Arapaho Tribe connects her to a community with deep roots in the region. The tribe historically inhabited the Front Range and plains of Colorado before being relocated to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming in the late 19th century, and tribal members continue to travel frequently between Wyoming and urban Colorado communities, according to the Longmont Leader. A 2021 Colorado law also extends in-state college tuition rates to Indigenous students affiliated with tribes holding historical ties to the state, including enrolled Northern Arapaho members, a measure aimed at easing financial barriers for Native youth.
Research cited by the Colorado Department of Public Safety underscores why these alerts matter: more than 80% of Indigenous people in the U.S. have experienced violent crime, and Denver ranks seventh nationally among cities for unrecorded missing and murdered Indigenous women cases, per Law Week Colorado. National studies cited in that same reporting show Indigenous women face murder rates nearly three times higher than white women, underscoring the stakes behind Colorado's rapid-alert protocols.
Tafoya's case is the latest in a string of recent Missing Indigenous Person Alerts across the Denver metro area. Hoodline reported on a similar alert for a South Denver teen just days earlier, and another Lakewood-originated alert involving a 27-year-old woman was issued last month. Anyone with information on Tafoya's whereabouts is urged to contact the Lakewood Police Department or call 911.
