Nassau Police Department makes 108 drug arrests

Police brass updates residents on opioid enforcement in Baldwin

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Nassau County police made 108 drug-related arrests in Baldwin in the week leading up to a July 12 town hall at which top officials updated residents on the department’s fight against heroin and opioids in the community. Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder told the crowd that 41 percent of those ar-rested were from Baldwin.

But the most important statistic, Ryder said after the forum, was the number of fatalities during the NCPD’s 64-day crackdown on opioids in the area: zero. “Nobody in Baldwin died of a heroin overdose in 60 days,” he said. “That’s a win.”

Between January 2017 and April 2018, just before the initiative began in Baldwin, there were six fatal ODs and 43 non-fatal ones — and the latter dropped by 30 percent during the operation, Ryder said.

The multi-pronged approach to fighting opioids, which started in Massapequa and has been used in other communities, involves arresting drug sellers while providing assistance to drug users. In the program’s first week in Baldwin, there were 41 drug-related arrests, along with 12 more for other crimes. Most recently, the NCPD announced that Jesse Sullivan, of Baldwin, and Samantha Carroll, of Albertson, were arrested on July 6 and charged with selling heroin and fentanyl to people in Baldwin. The arrests came after an investigation into overdoses in the area.

Ryder said that drug users are brought to diversion court, where they can either cooperate with law enforcement and enter a rehabilitation program — and have their records wiped clean of drug-related charges upon completion — or enter the criminal justice system if they choose not to work with police.

Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, a Democrat from Baldwin, said she was encouraged by the program’s effectiveness. “This is really getting results, and we’re seeing that in the numbers,” Curran said. “But we can’t, as the commissioner said, let our foot off the pedal. We have to keep going and make sure we’re going after every person who needs treatment and every dealer and holding them accountable.”

Police will still be cracking down on the sale and use of heroin in the community, even though the initiative has ended, Ryder said. “We’re going to stay on top of this,” he said. “We made an improvement, but don’t think for a second that all of this is going to go past us now.”

Patrick Keating, of Baldwin Harbor, said at the town hall that he thought the crackdown was “executed appropriately,” but that a lack of police presence in some areas has caused some drug use and other illegal activity to go unaddressed. “There’s either no presence” or “drugs are so overwhelming in this town that nobody is paying attention to us,” he said.

Keating brought up what he said was a “lack of police” in his part of Baldwin, citing speeding drivers who he said go unpunished, to which Ryder responded that more police should be seen there in the coming days.

Evelyn Estrine, of Baldwin Harbor, said the town hall’s message was good, but that parents of addicts should have been there to hear it. “The parents of these kids, they’re in la-la land,” Estrine said. “The fact is, you’re missing a lot of the people who needed to hear this.”

About 50 people attended the meeting, though some were there to receive an update on an unrelated July 11 shooting that happened in nearby South Hempstead. Ryder said that incident was still under investigation. Nonetheless, he said he was pleased to see more people at this town hall than at the one at the operation’s start.

“What you saw tonight was engagement from the community,” he said. “We were here in May. We had maybe 15 people. Tonight we had about triple that.”

Drug-abuse experts told the crowd about some of the warning signs of drug and opioid use. Someone is probably using opioids, the experts said, if their pupils have contracted, there are bruises or marks on their arms, and they are in a state of euphoria or are very drowsy.