Ironton Police Department Chief Pam Wagner spoke to the city council last Thursday to give them an update on 2017. During the update, she asked to increase the number of officers in Ironton. She stated that in 2017, “We have seen a major, major opioid epidemic” that has been devastating to their budget.

Wagner reported that her department answered 11,174 calls, towed 297 vehicles, did 681 incident reports, 253 crash reports, and arrested 973 people. 204 people were arrested on warrants. There were 407 traffic citations. The Major Crimes Task Force had 32 drug cases go to court, with three cases pending, 11 guilty pleas and the other 18 cases were plead out.

“We answered over 89 overdose calls, with six confirmed overdose deaths,” Wagner said, adding that, on 56 of those calls, the Ironton Fire Department went with the police. “I give you that statistic to let you know that you have two emergency services that are just working their tail ends off over this opioid epidemic.”

We agree with Chief Pam Wagner that Ironton does need to increase the number of police officers.

Our city, as well as the Tri-State area, is being overrun with problems all stemming from a national opioid crisis.

We believe the Ironton community needs to band together and support our police and other first responders as much as we can. In finding ways to increase our officer count, we need to always remember that we sleep safe in our beds at night because of the selfless acts of the brave men and women of our police department.