The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Holden University Center hosts seminar
Lakeland was packed with law enforcement officers for a seminar on investigating opioid-related deaths.
Lakeland Community College’s Holden University Center i n Kirtland was packed with dozens of Northeast Ohio law enforcement officers on Nov. 17 for a seminar on investigating opioid-related deaths.
The Opiate Overdose Death Investigation Seminar was administered through the Ohio Attorney General’s Office Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy and illuminated the latest teachings, techniques and trends surrounding this ever-increasing epidemic.
Even for experienced public safety personnel, the seminar illuminated many eye-opening components of this multifaceted issue.
“This is really good,” said Chester Township Patrolman Jake Mullet shortly before the 1 p.m. panel discussion on all things opioid-epidemic. “This is my second training in a little over two weeks and it’s great. Some of the stuff (they’re teaching us), you just don’t think about when you’re an officer on the road. I mean, the detectives might already know about it, but they haven’t had occasion to share it. So it’s definitely worthwhile.”
He said he especially appreciates the presentations about officer safety relative to opioid overdose death investigations because there’s some really bad stuff out there these days.
“It’s great because we’re also learning how to keep ourselves safe,” he said, adding that his brother, also a l aw enforcement officer, recently shared a story about an officer from another police department falling victim to a substance known as gray death during an investigation. “He came into contact with it. I’m not sure how. But he’s in a coma now.”
Mary E. Davis, OPOTA’s director, said more l aw enforcement officers than ever are having to deal with these kinds of issues.
“With i ncreased opiate deaths, jurisdictions are facing these situations more often or are more likely to eventually face one,” she typed in a Nov. 17 email exchange about the seminar.
She added that the Nov. 17 event “was the seventh and final session of this course offered in 2017.”
Lakeland Community College Police Department Chief Ron Morenz said the school and its police department were glad to host the event.
“We’re an educational facility, so why not mix that with law enforcement and help provide area law enforcement officers with up-to-date i nformation and present them with the current trends relative to what’s happening (with the opioid epidemic) in the area,” Morenz said.
He said — and knocked on wood — that Lakeland, specifically, has not dealt with any opioid-related deaths.
“But it’s something that affects all social and economic statuses,” Morenz said.
During the panel discussion Nov. 17, Lake County Coroner Dr. Mark Komar illustrated the problem’s growth with two figures.
“This year, we’ve had probably over a hundred deaths (related to opioid overdoses in Lake County). Last year, we had 89,” Komar said during his introduction before the 1 p.m. panel discussion began. “It’s skyrocketing.”
The seminar’s organizers hope attendees take new knowledge, information-sharing and a better understanding on the issues surrounding the opioid epidemic.
Davis, who described the event as “a comprehensive training seminar addressing issues in death investigations and prosecutions stemming from opiate overdose deaths,” indicated the intended takeaways include “crime scene; forensic examination of cellular phones,; the use of (the Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System) as an investigative tool; medical examiner and toxicology reports; and prosecution concerns under the Ohio Revised Code...”
In agreement is Monica Merrill, a faculty member in the criminal justice segment of Youngstown State University’s Bitonte College of Health and Human Ser vices, which helped sponsor the seminar.
“Our college’s health and human services department tries to do a lot of professional development, especially for law enforcement, social services, et cetera,” she said. “We just want to help provide these people with the tools they can use to be successful. So it’s good to get these people together to have a conversation and get on the same page about how to mitigate this problem.”
She added, “It’s unfortunate that it’s common knowledge that opiate deaths are becoming a bigger and bigger problem all the time.”
Komar, in a phone follow-up after the seminar, said he thought the semi- nar was a worthwhile endeavor.
“Getting l aw enforcement and health departments and medical examiners’ offices all on the same page with how we approach overdose-death investigations is great,” he said. “We need to coordinate.”
Besides the knowledge ea ch pa r ticipa nt took away from the seminar, it also counted toward law enforcement officers’ continuing education requirements, Merrill confirmed.
The Opiate Overdose Death Investigation Seminar was administered through the Ohio Attorney General’s Office Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy and illuminated the latest teachings, techniques and trends surrounding this ever-increasing epidemic.