Testing device aims to help Siloam Springs police combat drug use, track trends
BY: Lauren Spencer | See the original article on 5 News
The device, called TruNarc, was awarded by the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership to Siloam Springs PD to help with drug detection.
SILOAM SPRINGS, Ark. — A new piece of technology at the Siloam Springs Police Department (SSPD) will now identify substances within minutes.
It’s called TruNarc, and the department has had it for the past few months. It helps schools, college campuses, and law enforcement agencies easily analyze dangerous drugs.
“Anytime we come across a substance that we believe to be a narcotic, we can test it using the TruNarc system, and it will give us a quick and accurate identification of what kind of substance we’re dealing with,” SSPD Deputy Chief Derek Spicer said.
He said a device like this will be very helpful as police see a lot of drug related issues in the city. This will make identifying those substances much faster.
“Over the past several years, we’ve had thousands of narcotics arrests, thousands of calls that were dispatched to by PD and fire that came in as an overdose, and of those, about 75% ended up being a transport to the hospital,” Spicer said. “It’s great for us, because a lot of times, if it doesn’t identify, or it doesn’t pop using a conventional drug testing kit, then it goes to the crime lab, and it could be months before you get the results back, identifying the substance that you’ve made the arrest for.”
The devices can identify over 550 different substances including narcotics, precursors, and cutting agents. Spicer said it can also identify when a drug is laced with something.
“With the rising events of drugs being laced with fentanyl and how dangerous those are, the TruNarc can break that down and tell you two or three different potential ingredients in this substance, whether it’s fentanyl and meth or fentanyl with cocaine or whatever the case,” Spicer explained. With the outbreak of fentanyl and the dangers with fentanyl, being able to know what you’re dealing with very quickly, it’s extremely helpful for everybody.”
SSPD received the device through the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership’s initiative called the Sentinel Project, and officials said it will help more accurately identify harmful drugs. It’s an almost $1 million dollar project that helped fund 32 TruNarc devices for agencies across the state.
“We saw a need to get data more readily and quicker than what the norm was sometimes two or three months out,” said Kirk Lane, Director of the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership. “When you’re dealing with an overdose death or a dangerous substance or a poison, you want to know what that is immediately, so you can protect the public, yeah, and do your investigation in a timely matter.”
Lane mentioned it’s not only faster, but a safer way to detect substances.
“It allows the user to analyze a substance, sometimes very safely, through a packaging and things of that nature, so they don’t have to handle that substance or have any chance of inhalation of that substance and be able to tell them right on the spot what it is,” Lane said.
Officer Jonathan Harrington, a School Resource Officer for SSPD found out about the grant and led the charge for the department to apply.
“I love the department. I love our schools. I love my job. It’s like the job was made for me or I was made for it, one or the other. So I just wanted to be able to help,” Harrington said. “The main thing was to be able to help with the data because it’s a lot more difficult to track from like reaching out to each individual department and asking for the data and then compiling it. So this is super easy.”
There’s now eight TruNarc devices in Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley and 44 across the state from different funders. Lane said this will help track trends across Arkansas.
“I think the biggest thing is building that safety net over the state so we can see if anything news coming into our state, and be able to deal with it,” Lane said. “We’re seeing some trends in Northeast Arkansas that are little disturbing. So when now we know to where we can, in a timely fashion, put resources that are needed to protect people and keep people safe.”
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