When it comes to the enforcement and prosecution of narcotics cases, local police agencies are forming new units.
The Osceola County Sheriff ’s Office is going in one direction of its own, while city forces in Kissimmee and St. Cloud and local Florida Department of Law Enforcement will form a new partnership with the State Attorney’s Office.
This comes after last week’s announcement that the Osceola County Investigative Bureau, a collaboration of all law enforcement, had been dissolved due to a lack of such collaboration and sharing of intelligence.
State Attorney Monique Worrell announced Monday morning the formation of the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation. That afternoon, Sheriff Marcos Lopez announced the formal presence of the Osceola Narcotic Investigation Bureau.
Both centered on overdose deaths — un-prevented by Norcan treatment.
Worrell said the MBI will streamline prosecution of cases, focusing on jailing those who create addicts, while working to rehabilitate those addicts.
“We are committed to targeting and dismantling major drug trafficking organizations, and offering alternatives to incarceration for those exploited by those organizations,” she said. “We’ve tried to incarcerate our way out of the drug crises. It failed before, and it won’t work now.
“History says we don’t use broad strokes to address this epidemic. We will use targeted prosecution resulting in the incarceration of drug offenders who capitalize on the suffering of the addicted.”
Kissimmee Police Department Chief Jeff O’Dell said KPD is committed to drug enforcement, but OCIB didn’t have the collective experience at the command level.
“MBI has decades of experience passed down, especially at the command level, which is important for us,” he said.
Under the MBI plan, prosecutors will be identified who have subject matter experience in narcotic cases and targeting the most violent drug traffickers.”
Meanwhile, Lopez noted 324 overdose deaths were reported in Osceola County over the last two years.
“Imagine if they were classified as homicides. There’d be outrage,” he said. “I view criminals killing people with drugs the same way.”
His ONIB unit currently has 17 officers, including representatives from Florida Highway Patrol and possibly a federal agent. It is led by Lt. Fred Hinderman, who has 24 years of LEO experience, including six in SWAT. All agents previously assigned to OCIB have gotten ONIB invites.
“The old way of doing business isn’t working, so I’ve built a crime-fighting force that’s larger and better equipped to make sure drug traffickers end up in a court of law,” Lopez said.
His presentation came Monday surrounded by tables of drugs and guns seized by officers who are now part of ONIB, a haul Lopez said has a $1 million street value; $101,000 in cash has also been seized.
“These guys have made an impact in the drug trafficking in Osceola County,” he said, noting the bureau will also work to fight human and firearms trafficking, and organized crime, and that, to his knowledge, it’s the first outfit of its kind within the Sheriff ’s Office.
“We’re going in a new direction, doing new things, and we’re going to put the people who put this poison on our streets in prison and work with the prosecution to make sure they stay there for a long time. That’s what we’re here for, to send that message, not to play politics.”