Psst. Who’s that guy standing over there on the corner?
Is he a banker? A highway foreman? A fast food worker? A drug dealer?
Sure, he could be any one of these. But did you ever think it might be a police officer?
That’s the idea behind the Tyrone Borough Police Department’s newest program aimed at alleviating crimes associated with the use of illegal substances.
NARC, or Narcotics and Residual Crime, is a program that places plain-clothed Tyrone Borough Police officers in the streets of the community to protect residents against the burglaries, thefts and car break-ins associated with the drug trade.
“This team has been put together to focus more on the addicts that the dealers,” said Tyrone Borough Police Chief Joe Beachem. “About 80 to 85 percent of the crimes in Tyrone can be attributed to being associated with drug use. This program is not a catch-all, but it’s definitely a nice tool that allows us to prevent some of these crimes.”
According to Beachem, the NARC team consists of five officers with narcotics training. These officers are sent into the community in their jeans and sweatshirts when police believe the need arises. Beachem said continuing trends of car break-ins and home burglaries give the department reason to send the officers onto the streets.
“There’s no set scheduled for these guys,” said Beachem. “We’ll send officers out on an as-needed basis.”
According to Beachum, the program has thus far been successful.
“This is something we’re all really proud of,” said Beachem. “We’ve been on the streets for six months now with this program and it’s already producing results. It’s working better than I thought it would.”
According to Beachem, officers have already made two arrests on drug dealers who attempted to sell them marijuana. The force has also solved five vehicle break-ins and a home burglary.
“The arrests are important, but there are other advantages to this program,” said Beachum. “Our guys on the streets do a lot of intelligence gathering and receive a lot of good information that we can use in later police activities.”
Despite the early success of the program, Beachem continues to look to the community as another tool that helps his department protect the residents. He said residents that observe any suspicious activity need to contact police.
“We believe that we’re addressing the issue of dealers here in Tyrone pretty well,” said Beachem, noting the intense involvement with the Tyrone Police Department and Blair County Drug Task Force. “But if we only target those dealers, the addicts are still out there committing the crimes that help them get the drugs. We need to curtail this type of activity and believe the community is a great source of eyes and ears that can provide us with that important information.
“There are no stupid calls,” he continued. “Sure, we’re always pretty busy here, but we need the community’s help. If anyone sees anything they believe is suspicious, they need to contact us. If it turns out to be something then that’s good and we perhaps prevented another crime from happening.
“If it turns out to be nothing, then there’s no harm done.”
Beachum said the community’s help has really assisted officers with investigations over the past year. He said since Yanick was arrested on 13th Street last November, the number of calls from residents concerning illegal activity has increased 100 percent.
“We have a good and clean community that really respects itself and is willing to step up and help male this community the safest and crime-free town it possibly can be,” said Beachem. “We need to keep that up.”
The phone number for the Tyrone Borough Police Department is 684-1364.
