The Fort Thomas Police Department is running what it terms a "heroin rush hour" enforcement program.
The anti-drug unit, comprised of three northern Kentucky officers, is tasked with working to get heroin-affected drivers off highways.
Lieutenant Richard Whitford says officers have noticed addicts tend to wake up and drive to nearby Cincinnati about nine or ten a.m. “We’ll see three, four people in a car and, after interviewing them, they say ‘who has a valid driver’s license or who can get their hands on a car and they go pick the other friends up and some of them are in pajamas,” said Whitford. “Some of them have children still in the car and they’re going across, or tripping, as we call it, over to Cincinnati to buy the heroin.”
Whitford says the heroin-seeking travel can continue throughout the day. He says close to 200 heroin-opiate related charges have come about through the heroin rush hour effort over the last couple of months. “This is just three guys from the city of Fort Thomas, patrolling 471, 275, and a small stretch of highway. They’re getting numbers that are astounding. It’s scary is what it is,” Whitford explained.
