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Rural AZ police get $1.5 million to combat fentanyl • Arizona Mirror [1]
['Gloria Rebecca Gomez', 'More From Author', '- June']
Date: 2023-07
Two Northern Arizona police departments will receive a combined funding injection of $1.5 million to combat fentanyl and human smuggling activity in their communities.
On Friday, Gov. Katie Hobbs announced the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office and the Prescott Valley Police Department will each receive funding boosts of over $500,000, with YCSO snagging the lion’s share of the grant money, to bolster staffing and local crime initiatives.
“Whether it’s a lack of officers in the field or outdated technology, our counties have not been given the tools they need to succeed. But that ends now,” Hobbs said, at a Friday afternoon news conference.
The awards are Hobbs’ latest action to address border security, a policy area in which the Democrat has sought to contrast her local solutions approach against her predecessor’s oves that wound up as national news. In early June, Hobbs allocated $25 million to three border communities from former Gov. Doug Ducey’s Border Security Fund, which was previously mobilized to pay for things like a border wall made of shipping containers — thing thatHobbs derided as “political stunts.”
She made similar comments on Friday.
“Previously, this type of funding was used for political stunts that didn’t effectively help law enforcement do their jobs,” she said. “Under my administration, working closely with cities and counties, we’ll continue to carefully evaluate and identify the specific needs of each area and tailor the support to those needs.”
A renewed concern with border security has emerged leading up to the 2024 campaign season, and following the recent expiration of Title 42, a Trump-era public health policy that allowed immigration officials to circumvent asylum processes and rapidly expel more than 2 million people. State and federal officials worried the policy’s end would lead to an unprecedented surge of migrants in the border regions, but that increase didn’t materialize.
The money from Hobbs’ funding grants, local law enforcement officials said, will go towards bridging staffing gaps and bolstering the efforts of a narcotics and smuggling task force that operates across the county. The Prescott Valley Police Department helps manage Partners Against Narcotics Trafficking, or PANT, which conducts undercover investigations, highway narcotic stops and community outreach.
Prescott Valley Police Chief Bob Ticer lauded Hobbs’ grant awards, noting that the funds are a critical support in a community with few dollars to divvy up.
“There’s only so much funding that goes around at local levels, to get the support from the state and be able to help combat this type of crime is really paramount and we are very grateful for that,” he said.
Fentanyl overdoses have spiked in Yavapai County. The rural area experienced just 9 fentanyl related deaths in 2019, but that number jumped to 40 in 2020, and in 2022 PANT seized over one million fentanyl pills, according to Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes. Rhodes attributes that increase to a rise in cross-border smuggling operations.
“We’re dealing with things that we really haven’t seen,” he said. “And I think it’s important to note that local law enforcement, community police, were not built to deal with the kind of transnational, multi-billion dollar organizations that fuel this surge into our communities.”
Hobbs agreed, saying that criminal activity in the state’s border region doesn’t remain isolated in that area. The new funding, she said, is intended to address the fallout that communities further up in the state must contend with.
“We know that crimes that happen at the southern border don’t stay there,” she said. “It’s important that every county is well-equipped to prevent harmful activities from reaching their community.”
The vast majority of fentanyl is smuggled into the U.S. by citizens through official ports of entry, and Hobbs noted that her administration is focused on improving port security as much as it is on stopping activity that makes it further into the state. On June 27, Hobbs and U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly attended a groundbreaking of the San Luis land port of entry, which saw infrastructural and security improvements facilitated by federal funding.
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