Dallas Police to Present Efforts on How to Combat Fentanyl in the City

Dallas City Council on Monday will get a look at the efforts of the Dallas Police Department to combat the use of fentanyl in the city over the last two years.

For one North Texas mother the discussion, around a drug that leads to rising overdoses and deaths, can’t come soon enough.

From family pictures, you see Brett O’Keefe as a bright smiling young teenager, with no signs of the addiction his mother Kathy O’Keefe said would consume him and would take his life at just 18.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think my son would do heroin,” she said. “And it killed him.”

And in the 12 years since her son’s death, O’Keefe started Winning The Fight, a Flower Mound-based non-profit focused on drug education, support and resources for families. O’Keefe said much of the emphasis is now centered around fentanyl.

“We have to pay attention, we don’t have a choice, people are dying,” O’Keefe said.

This is why she’s encouraged by Dallas police, which will spend much of Monday before the city council’s public safety committee sharing details on criminal investigations to data on accidental overdoses connected to fentanyl.

A prepared report says the special investigations division of DPD seized 4473 grams of fentanyl in 12 operations that led to 13 arrests or cases filed in 2021.  For the first ten months of this year, 3919 grams have been seized, yielding 12 or arrests cases filed.

The operations covered DPD investigations as well as joint investigations with other law enforcement agencies including the DEA, FBI and Texas DPS.

Eduardo Chavez is the special agent in charge of DEA Dallas and says if the arrest totals seem low, he adds the investigations are often lengthy, and intricate and involve work to identify sources of large-scale imports of fentanyl, usually from organized criminal groups based in Mexico.

“We don’t want to many times get too ahead of an investigation, shortchange ourselves with the individuals who are bringing it in, not only to the Dallas-Fort Worth area but essentially into the country,” Chavez said.

Chavez adds methamphetamine and fentanyl now make up approximately 75% of agents work, a figure he doesn’t see slowing soon.

“Fentanyl right now is probably North Texas’ largest drug threat,” Chavez said.

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