Oregon State Police plan to step up patrols and move troopers to areas hardest hit by fentanyl use, under a push to tamp down spread of the drug. The plan was unveiled by Gov. Tina Kotek on Tuesday.
The so-called “strategic enforcement and disruptive initiative” will see state troopers teaming up with other law enforcement agencies, and engaging in high visibility shows of force, with troopers out in numbers along key highways. It comes as fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, continues to drive rising overdoses and alarming headlines in Oregon and around the country.
“I want all Oregonians to know that the state is moving forward with several new fentanyl strategic enforcement and disruption strategies,” Kotek said in a statement, adding she will prioritize expanding addiction treatment in Oregon as she attempts to cut into the fentanyl supply.
Details on the new enforcement push are light. The state police are not tipping their hand about where the agency plans to reallocate troopers or conduct stepped-up patrols.
But the timing of Kotek’s announcement is no coincidence. The governor unveiled the initiative during the second full meeting of a task force she convened in August to address the woes of Portland’s central city.
“This announcement says something important about our Governor: she is impatient about the right things,” Dan McMillan, CEO of the insurance company The Standard and a co-chair of the task force, said in a statement.
Four pieces of the new strategy highlighted in Kotek’s announcement were:
Oregon State Police have fewer than 500 troopers to patrol the entire state, and have long complained about dozens of vacant positions that have made it impossible to get the agency up to full staffing. But as Kotek has turned her attention to downtown Portland, the law enforcement agency over which she holds direct sway has inevitably become part of the discussion.
Last month, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler offered a list of requests for state assistance that included assigning 96 state troopers to Portland, where they could bolster a Portland Police Bureau that frequently notes its own understaffing.
Kotek did not comment directly on Wheeler’s request in August. It wasn’t clear from her announcement Tuesday how many state troopers will be focused on the Portland area.
Fentanyl is affecting Oregon’s largest city like nowhere else in the state. The rapid increase in people publicly using the drug led the Portland City Council to propose a new law that would allow police to crack down on such public use.
Following the passage of Measure 110, possession of small amounts of fentanyl is punishable with a ticket that can be easily ignored — though dealing the drug remains a crime. A wrinkle in state law stops Portland and other cities from levying consequences for public drug use.
In order for Portland’s new ordinance to have teeth, lawmakers will first need to allow it under state law. Kotek’s office said Tuesday that the governor will work to make that happen. “The Governor has made her position clear that public consumption of controlled substances is a problem that needs to be urgently addressed in this upcoming legislative session,” the office said in a press release. “She commends Mayor Ted Wheeler and the Portland City Council for their partnership in this effort in passing an emergency ordinance in recent weeks.”
Meanwhile, at least one city official is pushing for additional action. Commissioner Rene Gonzalez said Monday he will call for the city of Portland and Multnomah County to declare a public health emergency over addiction and drug use.
Gonzalez was reacting to news that a15-month-old child apparently overdosedon fentanyl last week after putting foil that had been used to smoke the drug into her mouth. The baby was revived, and the drugs allegedly belonged to her parents.