Officials with the Massachusetts National Guard announced Monday they have donated five high-tech devices to law enforcement through the Hampden District Attorney’s Office as part of a long-running partnership to battle drug trafficking.
“As drug dealers and traffickers adopt new methods and acquire new ways to infiltrate our communities we must stay ahead of them and similarly continue to adapt and evolve our methods of investigation and interdiction,” District Attorney Anthony Gulluni said Monday.
The National Guard has worked with local law enforcement, including State Police, local police and federal agents on drug task forces, since an agreement signed by Gulluni in 2015.
“We are talking about saving lives,” Gulluni said. “It is going to take a community effort. We want to see overdoses down.”
Fatal drug overdoses have remained steady statewide for several years. While Hampden County officials provide a variety of rehabilitation, intervention and prevention services to fight addiction, it is vital to keep drugs from getting on the streets in the first place, he said.
“We have to aid and support those suffering from the disease of addiction, but we also must simultaneously deter and arrest those who profit from it,” Gulluni said.
Funding for the five devices came through last year’s congressional National Defense Authorization Act. The National Guard ordered the equipment before President Donald Trump took office, said Major Gen. Gary Keefe, adjutant general of the Massachusetts National Guard.
“We in the guard, we look at these drugs as weapons,” Keefe said. “This is an international problem.”
GOING AFTER NARCOTICS
The National Guard’s program to counter drug trafficking launched in 1989. Every state has one. It has evolved over the years and is now focused on tracking down “illicit narcotics that are actually destroying our nation,” Keefe said.
The partnership is invaluable, officials say. The National Guard brings resources that other law enforcement agencies do not have, such as linguistics, intelligence and high-level training programs, Gulluni said.
“The drugs are coming in from other countries and they are ending up here,” Gulluni said. Joining law enforcement agencies extends drug fighting and gives it a global reach.
The pipeline of information goes both ways. Sometimes it is local police or state troopers who are part of drug task forces that learns vital information that is passed onto their partners in the National Guard or federal law enforcement, Gulluni said.
“We are providing critical equipment that will assist drugs from entering our communities,” said David W. Kelley, deputy director for the New England office of the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.
He called the work that the Massachusetts State Police does to patrol Interstate 91 “stellar.” The interstate and the Massachusetts Turnpike, which intersect in Western Massachusetts, is a common route for trafficking.
Of the five devices, two can analyze drugs found at a raid or even a traffic stop. That will help protect law enforcement officers when they encounter a substance they cannot identify. It also allows them to name the drug immediately, instead of waiting days and weeks for the lab to test it, Kelley said.
Other devices include one that can extract information in drug investigations, software for managing and organizing data from mobile devices and a device that can detect narcotics in homes and vehicles through X-rays.
Narcotics and cocaine can look different, depending on what they are cut with. This device can rapidly identify the drug discovered and determine if it is mixed with something, especially fentanyl, which has caused many overdoses, he said.
Massachusetts State Police Superintendent Col. Geoffrey Nobel thanked the National Guard for its help, saying the new equipment will keep troopers safer.
“We often ... forget the danger of exposure which is inherent in this work,” he said. Troopers in the field will be able to ID narcotics and other controlled substances that are not well known more efficiently — and at a distance, so they face minimal exposure.
The tools will support drug investigations, allowing lawful access into traffickers’ cell phones and computers, some of which are written in code.
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