Kansas sheriff describes trip to border chasing drug runners

NEW CENTURY, Kan. — The Johnson County, Kansas sheriff is again from a visit to Texas he made with U.S. Senator Roger Marshall and 4 different Kansas sheriffs.

They travelled to McAllen, Texas for 3 days and three nights returning earlier than the varsity taking pictures in Uvalde, Texas.

“When it will get darkish they are saying it actually picks up, boy does it,” Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden mentioned.

Hayden mentioned he didn’t know what to anticipate making the journey, however was nonetheless stunned by what he noticed as they tracked border crossers within the darkness alongside the Rio Grande.

“They’ve acquired all these legislation enforcement making an attempt to do every little thing they will simply to regulate what they will coming in and they’re overwhelmed,” Hayden mentioned.

He mentioned they met a rancher who described the 92 our bodies present in his discipline alongside the border this 12 months alone. Border Patrol brokers confirmed giant luggage of fentanyl that had been seized and bales of marijuana. Medicine he says are liable for an enormous surge in overdoses within the county. The sheriff mentioned fatalities can be within the 1000s if not for naloxone, used to reverse opioid overdoses.

“You at all times search for a nefarious-looking individual. That’s not essentially who’s carrying an enormous load of dope. The final huge one we acquired regarded like a soccer mother in a soccer van and she or he had $500,000 in there in her headliner,” Hayden mentioned.

With 50 job openings amongst his 500-person employees, it’s a battle to grab the medication making their manner into the county too. Plus the medication are tougher for authorities to seek out.

“It was once you needed to have huge masses to have cash. With fentanyl, it may be a plastic bag this huge and have thousands and thousands in it,” Hayden demonstrated.

The sheriff’s strategy to the struggle on medication didn’t change from the journey, he nonetheless says it’s about training and therapy together with enforcement. However he mentioned the all-hands-on-deck strategy on the enforcement facet nonetheless appeared like an uphill battle.

“It’s a nationwide downside. It’s simply tragic,” Hayden mentioned.