Sheriff talks drug fight, local support for officers

CELINA - Though law enforcement personnel nationally have been heavily scrutinized for use of force and imperiled by antagonists, Mercer County residents continue to support their officers and deputies, Mercer County Jeff Grey said.

Speaking to the Celina Rotary Club on Tuesday afternoon, Grey updated members about local efforts to curb drug abuse, his opposition to state Issue 3 and the pressure officers face.

"In the last year ... there's been a huge attack nationwide on law enforcement. A lot of cops are losing their lives," Grey said. "When they do get into situations where they have to use force, the cops are getting hung out to dry."

After the recent riots, Baltimore officers have hesitated to act, he said.

"I don't know if they (officers) were right or wrong in Baltimore, but we shouldn't be trying cases in the news media, sensationalizing things," he said.

Grey said local residents are very supportive of law enforcement.

"We have a community that supports us. Our elected officials all tend to get along when we do have an issue," he said.

But the four-term sheriff said he worries about anti-police attitudes surfacing locally.

"Nobody's getting rich being a cop so why would they want to get into this profession or stay in this profession if they have to worry about every little thing that they do?" Grey asked. "And I'm really afraid that we're going to lose some really good young people if the attitude from across the country ever comes here to Mercer County."

Grey highlighted the quality of law enforcers in the county.

"And I'm telling you in Mercer County - not just at the sheriff's office (but) at the Celina Police Department, at the villages - we've got a lot of good young officers coming up and I'm really concerned about the attack on our profession," Grey said.

"We're going to mess up once in a while. It happens," Grey said, noting the worst incident to occur to his office in the last few years was when a K-9 died in the back of a cruiser.

"That was bad but we took it on the chin and we didn't make excuses for it, we messed up," Grey said. "I think the public was good to us about that. They expected us to deal with it, which we did."

He also spoke of the decline of heroin-related arrests in the county.

"Some of that is, sadly, because some people have died from heroin overdoses," Grey said. "We're seeing a lot of heroin that is laced with fentanyl. We've even had a couple of heroin overdoses where it has killed them fast enough that the needle is still in their arms."

Another reason for the decline in heroin arrests is that some users have been sent to prison, Grey said.

"I don't think Mercer County's philosophy is prison first for a user," Grey said. "What we've got to do is figure out how to get them beyond the addiction or at least to be able to manage it. Being addicted to drugs is kind of like being an alcoholic: You have to manage it the rest of your life. I don't think they ever get up one day and they're healed."

The problem with incarceration is prisoners learn how to be better criminals, Grey said. Also, drugs have a way of creeping into jails.

The good news from a law enforcement perspective is the number of heroin-related arrests fell from 107 in 2013 to 82 in 2014, Grey said.

"I really think that because we've been public, because everybody's working together on it, that we have less people using heroin for the first time, which is what I believe is the only way we're going to get ahead of it," Grey said. "There's people that get addicted to heroin the first time they use it, so the best thing we can do is get the message out there how dangerous it is so that hopefully our young people don't try it the first time."

Grey said he's learned that many women get hooked on heroin because of their boyfriends. In some households the male may sell drugs to support his family and his addiction. Once he is incarcerated, the woman may then take over the family business and find herself incarcerated, too, Grey said.

To feed the addiction - such as the woman who was spending $220 a day to purchase as many as 22 heroin capsules - some resort to stealing, the sheriff said.

But while heroin use is declining, methamphetamine is on the rise, Grey said. Unlike heroin, which causes users to nod off, fall asleep, lie and steal, meth can arouse violence.

"And that's what really scares me about it," he said.

The two men convicted of murdering Robert and Colleen Grube in Fort Recovery a few years ago also admitted to having smoked methamphetamine before acting out, Grey noted.

"I'm really concerned about the upswing we're seeing in methamphetamine," he said. "We're trying to get ahead of it. I don't want to see the heroin come back, but I also don't want to see more victims in our community of the people that live here from the robberies and the home invasions that will come with methamphetamine if that picks up."

Grey expressed his opposition to state Issue 3, which if approved by voters on the November general election ballot would make marijuana legal for adults 21 and older to use, purchase or grow in limited quantities. The lengthy ballot initiative lays out a regulatory and taxation scheme for cannabis and creates a network of 10 authorized growing facilities, which have already attracted private investors.

"I don't care what anybody tells you: Marijuana is a gateway drug," Grey said.

He said he's afraid the big cities will outvote rural areas in favor of the measure.