A police officer who works in an American city hit hard by overdose drug deaths got a first-hand look this week at how the crisis is affecting Vancouver and what measures are in place to help reduce the number of people dying from drug use.
Deputy Chief Thomas Quinlan of the Columbus, Ohio police department joined Vancouver officers in the Downtown Eastside and witnessed people using drugs and watched as others went in and out of drug injection sites such as Insite on East Hastings.
“It was beyond my comfort zone, to be honest, [but]… if I were here in this community and it is what the community wants, then I probably would adjust to it,” said Quinlan, noting Columbus does not have injection sites but offers needle exchanges.
Columbus officers carry the overdose-reversing drug naloxone and respond to overdose calls. Quinlan said officers have saved many lives in a city and state that still saw more than 4,800 people die of a drug overdose in 2017. That was a 20 per cent increase over the previous year.
Of those deaths, 70.7 per cent involved fentanyl or carfentanil, according to a report from the Ohio Department of Health. In B.C., more than 1,300 people died of a drug overdose between January and November 2018, with the majority of deaths linked to fentanyl.
Ohio’s population is 11.6 million, B.C.’s is 4.8 million.
Quinlan, whose duties include overseeing patrol operations, said each city in North America affected by the increase in deaths is taking different approaches to address the problem. In Columbus, police have no-go zones around needle exchanges and a policy not to charge victims of an overdose when found with drugs during a 911 call.
Not all officers agree with the policies, said Quinlan, when asked about whether Ohio will make a move to open injections sites. Insite, he learned, was the first government-sanctioned injection site to open in North America in September 2003.
“We’re having trouble with officers embracing [the policies], so I certainly don’t think we’re going to anytime soon feel good about embracing the idea of safe consumption zones like you have here,” he said.
The Franklin County Public Health department in Columbus has an “opiate action plan,” which calls for more treatment, the widespread use of naloxone and education and prevention programs aimed at curbing drug use.
Several U.S cities., including Seattle, San Francisco and Philadelphia, are considering opening injection sites.
Quinlan was in Vancouver as part of a North American police association program where deputy chiefs visit other departments and get mentored by chiefs such as Police Chief Adam Palmer. The program attempts to match officers with similar-sized departments and cities.
“I learned quite a bit,” said Quinlan, who shadowed Palmer, quizzed him on his thought process in developing policing strategies, spent time with officers overseeing various sections within the department, toured VPD facilities and met with police leaders at a meeting on Vancouver Island.
He said he was impressed with communication between units in the department, the professionalism of Vancouver officers and the VPD’s approach to predictive policing. In one of his last days of his visit, Quinlan attended a Vancouver Police Board meeting, where he saw Palmer calm down an agitated man without the use of force.
“I told him this right after, that it was brilliant leadership — someone setting an example and modeling the behaviour you want officers to do,” he said. “He clearly has a natural ability to diffuse and de-escalate someone who is in a crisis. That was good.”
It was Quinlan’s first time in Vancouver and Canada. He described the city as beautiful and found the people very welcoming.
“It felt like a very safe city,” he said. “In the States, there’s so many guns and so many murders. Some places I wouldn’t go unarmed. Here, I felt perfectly safe, even in the harshest areas.”
@Howellings
