Chris Mayhew

cmayhew@communitypress.com

Signs of heroin use are sometimes easy to spot. “They’ll cut across three lanes of traffic.”

FORT THOMAS – Officer Derek Faught drives past cars on I-471 and I-275 all day looking for signs of drugged drivers as part of a special new heroin unit.

“We’re looking for those intoxicated drivers,” Faught said. “We want to get them off the road.”

Fort Thomas Police Department launched a three-officer Heroin Interdiction Team (HIT) more than two months ago to get heroin off the roadways. HIT officers Sgt. Chris Goshorn and officers Nicholas Hoffman and Faught were taken off routine patrols to look only for heroin and opioids.

Faught said police have modeled some of their HIT shifts to be deployed during what they call “heroin rush hour.”

“Around 9 or 10 a.m. is when it seems like the addicts are waking up or getting moving for the day, going over to meet their dealers in Cincinnati and coming back,” he said.

Addicts wearing pajamas carpool on their way to get a fix

A car with four or five people in their pajamas going to Cincinnati and back within 20 minutes can be one clue for police. Addicts from Clermont County and southeastern Ohio towns pool their gas money and ride together, Faught said, crossing through Fort Thomas to Cincinnati.

“They’re kind of few and far between (during the day) so it’s kind of easier to pick them out because there’s not much traffic,” he said.

Police are spotting people from southeastern Ohio towns such as Amelia and Georgetown, Ohio, driving across interstates in Campbell County to urban neighborhoods in Cincinnati to buy drugs, Faught said. A trip across I-275 and I-471 is often the quickest route via interstate between Cincinnati’s east side and Downtown Cincinnati.

Fort Thomas, a community of 16,225 people in Campbell County, Kentucky, is less than three miles from Cincinnati. The city has the top-ranked public school in the state. Some residents have hilltop views of Downtown Cincinnati and eastern Cincinnati. The City Council has been informed of HIT patrols and has had no objections.

Police know they can’t catch all the overdosed drivers, said department spokesman Lt. Rich Whitford. Heroin intoxication led to a Feb. 22 crash on I-275 when a person was fatally injured and a 7-month-old infant was ejected from the car and critically injured, Whitford said.

“This is a reaction to the epidemic that we’re dealing with,” he said of the HIT team’s formation.

The Heroin Interdiction Team was the idea of department administrators in direct response to seeing multiple heroin-related interstate crashes, Whitford said.

So far, police in Fort Thomas have tracked 143 different drug charges attributed to HIT team officers since the unit started Feb. 15.

Since Feb. 15 HIT team’s made 143 drug charges

Of those 143 drug charges, 93 charges were heroin or opiate-related and 55 were felony charges, Whitford said.

Faught said police need a reason beyond heroin suspicion to pull over a motorist. These reasons can include not wearing a seat belt or other traffic infractions.

Occasionally, signs of heroin use are easier to spot.

“They’ll cut across three lanes of traffic,” Faught said.

Sometimes intoxicated motorists go slowly in the fast lane or drive at high rates of speed weaving around other cars.

Police want to stop intoxicated drivers and get them help, Faught said.

“We are compassionate,” he said. “We’re not overly compassionate, but we empathize with the addiction. It’s a disease.”

Hoffman said he thinks the Heroin Interdiction Team is making a difference.

“But there is so much still out there that it’s hard to even make a dent in the issue and I think we are being successful with it,” he said.

One of the most memorable instances happened in HIT’s second week, Hoffman said.

“They were both under the influence of heroin and had their 16-month-old baby in the car,” Hoffman said.

“It just blew me away that it’s just that addictive and you don’t care about anyone else’s safety beyond getting your fix for the day,” Hoffman said.

Cops stunned by intoxicated drivers with infants

Hoffman said he pulled over the two parents at 11 a.m. on I-471 that day.

“They were actively shooting up in the car and destroying evidence in the process of being pulled over,” he said.

Sadly, it wasn’t the first time Hoffman saw an infant in a car when the driver was intoxicated on heroin or opioids.

“Mostly, I want to see those people get help,” Hoffman said.

Many addicts police have charged or stopped are from eastern Ohio, Whitford said. Others are from as far south as beyond Lexington or Northern Kentucky areas, Whitford said.

Many area police agencies are out doing the same type of work, so there is a regional approach, Whitford said. Not all agencies have dedicated teams, though.

“We’d like to form a countywide team instead of just Fort Thomas,” he said.

The word is getting out among addicts to avoid Fort Thomas, and that’s OK if they try to find other routes, Whitford said. The city’s team is one approach to stopping the larger problem of heroin, Whitford said.

“How long is this going to continue?” he asked. “Right now they’re making a great difference protecting the residents of Northern Kentucky and Fort Thomas.”