Police Chief shares department response to drugs, crime at Chamber Luncheon

The heroin problems the City of Vestavia Hills faces today are no different than the problems faced by other cities, Police Chief Dan Rary said during the monthly Chamber of Commerce luncheon May 10. Every city has the same issues, he said.

“We used to be really bad about sticking our head in the sand and trying to ignore the problem,” said Rary, “but that’s just not possible anymore.”

In the last few years, Rary said the city has lost five students to heroin overdoses, including a close friend of his own daughter.

“That’s five too many,” he said.

His talk focused on outlining issues the city is facing and how the department is tackling them. Rary said almost all of the crimes seen in Vestavia Hills are in one way or another connected to drug-crimes in Metro Birmingham.

The increase in drug use in Vestavia, he said, can be traced back to a combination of factors, including a growing social acceptance and legalization of marijuana, increases in underage drinking and enabling parents, an increase in prescriptions for opiate-based prescriptions, the easy access to cheap heroin and the prevalent lacing of heroin with fentanyl. The lacing, he said, yields a cheaper, but more potent and deadlier product. All five of the recent heroin-related deaths in the city, said Rary, involved heroin laced with fentanyl.

Those factors, in combination with the increase of legal synthetic drugs flooding the market and weakening penalties for offenders, means cities are seeing a rise in deaths and overdoses, as well as crime.

When Rary became chief in 2011, the city was witnessing its highest crime levels ever. It was then, he said, the department took the decision to drastically increase its drug-enforcement efforts. In 2015 alone, said Rary, the four-man VHPD narcotics unit was responsible for 354 undercover narcotic purchases.

To date, the department’s SWAT team, team has carried out 35 felony search warrants, collecting thousands of pounds of drugs as a result. The department has also expanded its efforts to collect unused narcotics. Since 2013, prescription collection sites have brought in 944 pounds of pills.

“That’s a lot of pills,” said Rary.

Traffic stops, he said, are another avenue for catching drug users and sellers.

“If you pull a car over,” he said, “you might find something else.”

Since the department increased its drug-enforcement efforts, crime rates in the city “have collapsed,” said Rary, and are the lowest they have been since 1974.

Rary said he preaches a proactive approach to his officers. They are trained to take preventative measures, rather than reactive ones. High priorities for the department include ensuring officers are properly trained in DUI recognition as well as search and seizure laws, said Rary.  

As the department continues its drug enforcement efforts, Rary outlined its current goals. These include reducing the availability of narcotics, increasing the ratio of patrol officers to the population, having more Student Resource Officers at schools, creating a family services unit, improving its crime trend analytic response and developing a deferred prosecution programs for youthful offenders.

Following Rary’s talk, officers with the department took questions from the audience.

To submit an anonymous crime tip to VHPD, visit the department’s Facebook page.