CPD keeps pace with ever-changing drug culture – Cumberland Times-News

Police practices and policies evolve throughout the years. When police leaders attended leadership schools, they often learned about the crack epidemic of the 1980s and how this era changed policing. The sudden influx of crack cocaine and the crime associated with it overwhelmed police resources and caused chaos in every community.

This era brought the war on drugs and the formation of specialized police drug task forcesthat made agencies on federal, state and local levels cooperate and organize investigations. These investigations worked drug cases from the street to the supplier across jurisdictions. After several years of working drug cases this new way, the changes proved effective and the crack epidemic started to subside.

The next generations of police leaders will learn about the current opioid epidemic we are now living and how it changed policing. I can remember when I started at the Cumberland Police Department we would occasionally get called to a drug overdose, and most of those ended up being intentional acts. Then in late 2015, the opioid crisis hit us hard with overdoses happening several times a week instead of being rare occurrences.

At the Cumberland Police Department, we first handled this new rash of overdoses as we had routinely done: If the patient was not breathing, perform CPR and call for the Cumberland Fire Department. Officers would then gather any evidence at the scene and file charges for any drug or drug paraphernalia of which there was evidence.

I can remember being on the scenes of these early overdoses and our officers explaining to family members that filing charges were for the best because a judge could potentially order drug treatment programs, which was often the only way to get some people the help they needed.

As the opioid drug crisis continued, police were showing up at some drug-related death investigation scenes and discovering that the victims may have survived if they had received the proper help; however, fear of being arrested kept people from calling 911 at the time.

Good Samaritan Law

Even in Cumberland, this was further evidenced by unconscious overdose patients occasionally being dumped on a street or outside the fire station or hospital. This brought about the Good Samaritan Law, which gave immunity for minor drug- and alcohol-related crimes to the victim and anyone else who summoned help for an overdose patient. This new law encouraged people to help those who overdosed and has undoubtedly saved lives.

The benefit of saving lives outweighed the ability of police to make arrests; however, it took away a tool that we had previously used to get people drug treatment. I can remember working with my squad through the changes brought about by the Good Samaritan Law as well as the frustration it brought. With no drug arrests for overdoses, officers and concerned family members could no longer hope for court-ordered drug treatment. All of my officers were being approached by concerned family members and even addicts wanting help with addiction, and as a department we were sometimes a bit lost as to what we could do.

Miracle drug

Fortunately, in Cumberland we have a professional fire department with a quick response time. These city paramedics carried what became known as the miracle drug, naloxone (Narcan), that reversed the effect of opioids and really brought people back from the dead. This gave them a second chance at life that the rescuers hoped would not be wasted.

Unfortunately, in the past, if a person was successfully revived through the use of naloxone and was oriented, they could refuse further treatment and walk away. Knowing the person had broken the law, needed help, could still possibly die and yet was free to go was devastating to first responders.

In later years, the Allegany County Health Department trained all of our officers in the use of naloxone and we started carrying it on duty. It soon became commonplace for our own officers to start administering naloxone and reviving patients in cooperation with the responding Cumberland Fire Department. Over the years we have been credited with saving many lives.

Traditionally, if there was an illegal drug issue, the police would handle it. People in this area thought that any illegal drug issue use, abuse, buying, selling, prevention all fell under the realm of the Cumberland Police Department. However, this latest era of drug abuse made us realize that we could not do this alone.

A social problem

The Cumberland Police Department knew we had to change our approach to the opioid epidemic. Fortunately, we were not alone in this thinking. Police departments and community groups along the eastern U.S. were also faced with this issue and were willing to work through it together. We started to realize that this was not a police problem, but a social problem, and started to form partnerships with other entities that could offer support and advice.

This hodgepodge of partnerships soon began to take shape into an organized system of referrals we could offer families for help. Some of our greatest assets were our very own Allegany County Health Department as well as the Western Maryland Health System who have graciously supported CPD in every way. Soon officers were carrying pamphlets and making phone calls to drug counselors while on the streets trying to get help for those who wanted it.

Also during this time, the public, as well as officers had to become educated about drug addiction. Many times, I heard people saying they didnt understand why people would keep taking heroin if it could kill them. ...why didnt they just stop? It was through educating ourselves about the science of addictions that we came to the realization that drug addiction was a mental health problem that crossed over into criminal behavior, not the other way around.

Mental health issue

Again, it was time to make an adjustment. We were no longer allowed to arrest overdose patients due to the Good Samaritan Law, however, we could now associate overdose patients with drug addiction, which is a mental health diagnosis.

If an overdose patient was near death we could articulate that they were a danger to themselves and suffered from a mental illness which fit the criteria for a police officer to force a person to have a mental health evaluation done. We didnt have to watch people walk away from near death experiences any longer. Instead we could make them go to the hospital where a counselor could begin to try to get them help. At first this was not accepted by all hospital medical staff, but supported by mental health staff and drug counselors. The Cumberland model soon became an accepted best practice and copied statewide.

D.A.R.T.

The Cumberland Police Department expanded on this model in later years by establishing a Drug Abatement Response Team or D.A.R.T, which was modeled after similar domestic violence teams. When an overdose patient is identified through some type of police response, such as the overdose patient requiring hospitalization, the team consisting of a police officer and a peer drug counselor track the patient in the days after their release from the hospital the time when they are most susceptible to relapse. Support is then offered by the team to help keep the person from using again. This is also a CPD original programthat has been adopted in other jurisdictions.

Although we had to adjust and move more toward non-traditional ways of policing, we also kept true to our duty. We adopted new drug crime information sharing and intelligence-gathering practices across agencies, and we increased drug enforcement efforts. We went after the dealers who were providing heroin, fentanyl and opioid pills. We conducted investigations into prescription fraud and doctors over-prescribing opioids.

We still continue to go after the criminals who are helping fuel these drug problems and all of the crime associated with it. Although we are quite proud of the work we have done at CPD we could not have been as successful without the help of our partners at the Allegany County Narcotics Task Force, C3I, Allegany County Sheriffs Office, Maryland State Police, Frostburg Police Department, Frostburg University Police, Natural Resources Police and the Allegany County States Attorneys Office all who have supported us in our various drug enforcement initiatives.

Opioid task force

As these programs were put in place, our partnerships continued to strengthen. We have united with a common goal of eliminating our areas drug abuse problem.

The Allegany County Opioid and Overdose Task Force was developed, as well as the Opioid Summits and similar boards. The successful Cumberland Police Department Safe Streets program was modified to focus on drug crime. The communitys successful Prescribe Change media campaign was developed. The health department started training citizens and other first responders on the administration of Naloxone. Many other private and faith-based organizations came forward and wanted to partner with the police to help in any way they could.

In all, since the opioid crisis started to first affect Cumberland, the police department has undergone a cultural change. We were forced to move away from the traditional policing of just locking up the bad guy and move toward more social intervention by helping in other ways to solve this problem.

We have had to continually react and adjust to find new ways to develop tools to combat drug abuse as well as all of the crimes that associate with it. I will tell you that this drug crisis did cause stress on the department.

Remember that not only drug crime increased, but all of the other crimes associated with it such as people intoxicated on the streets to addicts stealing to support their habit to shootings and robberies between drug dealers. This coupled with manpower and budget shortfalls over the years was tough on the officers, however, they persevered.

The city can be proud of the CPD officers. Each step we took addressing the opioid epidemic along the way saved lives. Sometimes only one at a time, but they add up. We now understand more about drug addiction and how hard it is to overcome. Occasionally we get those who walk up to us and thank us for teaching them a DARE lesson, referring them to a counselor, arresting them, causing them to go to jail, making them go to the hospital, or even bringing them back to life.

It was not one single action but a combination of all of these effortsthat have helped the city during this crisis. We are proud to say that for the first time in years overdoses and drug crime are down. Our city is looking better every day. We pray that it will continue to get better and we will continue our efforts to insure that happens. We thank everyone for their support.

Chuck Ternent, a 25-year veteran of the Cumberland Police Department, serves as its interim chief.

Read more:

CPD keeps pace with ever-changing drug culture - Cumberland Times-News