ARORP helps small town police department identify the enemy
For his entire career, Richard Friend was in the business of protecting people. Included in that were hitches with both the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy and a 30-year law career in law enforcement that culminated with two years as Chief of Police in England, Arkansas.
Throughout his time behind the badge, Friend saw many drug waves rise and fall, but the opioids he saw take over the community in the waning chapter of his career was unlike anything to come before it.
“When I first took over as chief, I noticed that we had the essential ingredients for violent crime — poverty and drugs,” he said. “We had a town of 2,500 people and a disproportionate number of people who were OD’ing on prescription medications. We had a high rate of theft of prescription medications and a high level of opioid use for such a small rural town, just a bump in the road between North Little Rock and Stuttgart.
“As fentanyl grew, I started hearing about police officers who were on routine traffic stops that unexpectedly had to deal with it,” he said. “Police officers that I personally knew had encountered this fentanyl in a traffic stop in small towns where you might not have expected it. I realized pretty quick that, OK, this is a public safety issue and it’s an officer safety issue.”
While looking for a way to assist the public while keeping his officers safe, Friend received an email from Kirk Lane, director of the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership (ARORP) offering a novel new idea.
“Kirk sent out an email to a lot of small departments talking about the TruNarc system, which will provide testing right on the spot,” he said. “If the person’s having a medical event like a seizure and they’re in possession of drugs, this lets you test those drugs right there.”
TruNarc is a handheld device that provides contactless and reliable identification of narcotics out in the field. Per company information, the device can identify more than 1,200 substances including narcotics, precursors and cutting agents with the accuracy and dependability of a narcotics testing lab. It also generates records with complete scan results, including time-and-date stamps, to expedite prosecution.
“One, you can immediately direct first responders, ‘Hey, they’ve got fentanyl here. Take safety precautions to make sure you don’t get it through transdermal exchange,’” he said. “Second, we know what treatment to take and what our timeline is for the individual.”
ARORP, a joint initiative of the Association of Arkansas Counties and the Arkansas Municipal League, was formed to oversee and manage distribution of some of the funds Arkansas received through national lawsuit settlements related to the opioid crisis. The group partners with a variety of community-based organizations providing frontline support to address the harm done by the opioid epidemic. The group has appropriated the settlement dollars for initiatives addressing gaps in local services, ranging from sober living and recovery programs to education and prevention efforts.
Friend is quick to point out that the possibility of a department the size of England’s procuring a TruNarc device on its own was practically nil. Given the unit’s price tag, which ranges from $15,000 to $20,000, ARORP provided a tool that the city could not have realistically purchased on its own.
“When you’re fighting over resources to keep up with pay for officers and replace vehicles and equipment, an extra $15,000 just wasn’t going to be there,” he said. “This has been a game changer for us. It filled a need that we had, that we didn’t have the money to fund, that directly addressed a public safety issue.”
Friend and his officers received a training session through Thermo Scientific, sponsored by ARORP. They also received naloxone and training on the lifesaving administration of it during an opioid overdose. These tools and knowledge had a positive impact on the department’s work almost immediately, saving six individuals in the first six months.
“I’ve got a video of a brand-new police officer that I had trained where a person pulled into a nursing home and said, ‘Hey, my friend and I just took what we thought was Xanax,’” Friend said. “Well, of course it wasn’t Xanax, it was a counterfeit pill with fentanyl in it. This guy’s buddy, he was blue, no pulse, nothing, and we are 30 minutes from a hospital or an ambulance. Well, in 30 minutes you’re dead. Like, in half that time, you’re dead.
“We tested the pill, and it had fentanyl in it, and then we administered naloxone to him. One minute later, the guy’s sitting up and he’s talking, and the first words he said was, ‘I thought it was Xanax.’ That kid would’ve died if it hadn’t been for funding this device and the training that allowed us to save him. I can’t sing ARORP’s praises enough.”
Feature image, top: Chief Richard Harper and Officer Josh Fitzgerald.
Learn More:
Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership
