OD death spiral

Opioid scourge blindsides NYPD

The NYPD admitted on Thursday that it was not prepared for the massive surge in fatal opioid overdoses last year — a death toll that was higher than those for homicides and traffic collisions combined.

“We were at a level of 700 to 800 [fatal] overdoses a year, and the needle had not been moving on this,” said Dermot Shea, the department’s chief of crime-control strategies, speaking at a Police Executive Research Forum Thursday at NYPD headquarters.

Shea said the number of fatal overdoses had been climbing over the last few years before hitting 753 in 2015.

But in 2016 the number exploded to a projected total of 1,075 — mainly as a result of heroin and painkiller overdoses.

By comparison, 335 people died from homicides citywide in 2016, while the number of traffic fatalities was 220.

“We were not ready for that uptick when we saw a 38 percent increase in 2016,” Shea said. “Did it creep up on us? Somewhat.”

“We were a disaster internally, the NYPD, on measuring data regarding [overdoses],” he said.

“We were busy, and we were doing other things,” he added. “The focus wasn’t always on this. The focus is on this now.”

The NYPD and the city’s Department of Health the past few years have been jointly tracking overdose deaths through a program called Rx Stat — similar to CompStat, which allows officials to track crime patterns and see where enforcement is needed.

Police Commissioner James O’Neill called the opioid issue “a national crisis.”

“This problem is changing the way the men and women of this department have to do their jobs,” he said, adding that around 17,000 of his cops are trained to use naloxone, a nasal spray that reverses the effects of a drug overdose.

Cops saved around 150 overdose victims last year with the medication, and O’Neill said the NYPD intends to spend $190 million distributing naloxone kits to officers.

“We can’t arrest our way out of this problem,” O’Neill said.

“When our investigators interview someone lucky enough not to die from an overdose, we tell them we’re not going to lock them up. We want to know where they got their drugs. We want to move further up the food chain until we cut off the supply.”

We were not ready for that uptick when we saw a 38 percent increase in 2016 . . . We were busy and we were doing other things. The focus wasn’t always on this. The focus is on this now. —NYPDChief DermotShea

The NYPD says the number of opioid overdose deaths in the city has skyrocketed over the last five years, forcing it to change its approach in combatting the problem.