Brandon del Pozo | |
---|---|
Chief of Police, Burlington, Vermont | |
In office September 1, 2015 –December 16, 2019 | |
Personal details | |
Born | 1974 (age 50–51) |
Spouse | Sarah Carnevale (m. 2002) |
Alma mater | Dartmouth College (AB, 1996), Harvard University (MPA, 2004), John Jay College, CUNY (MA, 2007), The Graduate Center, CUNY (MPhil, 2012 & PhD, 2020) |
Website | www.brandondelpozo.com www.policeandthestate.com |
Brandon del Pozo (born 1974) is an assistant professor of Medicine and Health Services, Policy, and Practice (Research) at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and a research scientist at Brown University Health. [1] He is also a faculty member of the Master of Science Program in Addiction Policy and Practice at the Georgetown University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. [2]
Prior to research, del Pozo was the chief of police of Burlington, Vermont for four years, [3] and served with the New York City Police Department from 1997 to 2015.
Del Pozo is an elected member of the national Council on Criminal Justice, [4] a Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science (LEADS) Academic at the National Institute of Justice, [5] and was a 2022-2023 LEAP Investigator at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. [6] He has received recognition for his leadership from the Police Executive Research Forum. [7]
Born in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of the New York borough of Brooklyn to a Cuban father and Jewish mother, [8] del Pozo graduated from Stuyvesant High School [9] in New York.
Del Pozo completed a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College, [10] a master's degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice from John Jay College. [11] [12] At the Kennedy School, he was its inaugural 9/11 Public Service Fellow. [11] [13]
He holds a PhD in Philosophy from The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York, [14] after which he trained in medicine and public health as a NIDA-funded postdoctoral researcher at The Miriam Hospital and the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, where he received a faculty appointment. [1]
Del Pozo has been funded by the National Institutes of Health to investigate how public systems, policies, and law affect the health and safety of individuals and communities. [15] He also conducts research on the normative commitments of government, especially police.
Some of his research that has gained mainstream attention compares the risks of violence faced by military-aged males in select U.S. cities with the wartime risks of injury and death faced by soldiers deployed to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, [16] [17] finds that police opioid seizures are spatiotemporally associated with increased overdose rates in their aftermath, [18] concludes that crime and disorder did not increase in the areas where New York City opened the nation's first government-sanctioned safe injection sites, [19] provides evidence that fentanyl accounts is the prime driver of the US overdose crisis more so than changes in drug enforcement, [20] and assesses efforts to dispel misinformation that police officers can quickly overdose and die from touching the synthetic opioid fentanyl. [21] [22]
His normative work has centered on the need to balance criminal justice and drug policy reforms with the public safety goals of reducing crime and maintaining order, [23] noting that public support for reforms in affected communities has hinged on delivering public safety in tandem with public health initiatives. [24] In 2022, Cambridge University Press published del Pozo's book The Police and the State: Security, Social Cooperation, and the Public Good. [25] [26] It offers an account of the role of police in a pluralist democracy, attempting to reconcile the work of Hegel, John Rawls, Elizabeth Anderson, and Charles Mills. Mills sat on his dissertation committee.
Del Pozo started his career in the New York Police Department (NYPD) as a patrol officer in East Flatbush, Brooklyn in 1997 and attained the rank of deputy inspector, commanding the 6th and 50th Precincts in Manhattan and the Bronx, [27] [8] and serving overseas as an intelligence officer for the Arab world and India, based in Amman, Jordan. [27] In 2015, del Pozo was nominated to be the chief of police of Burlington, Vermont. [28] His appointment was contested by activists due to his prior work with the NYPD, [29] but his nomination was approved by the Burlington City Council. [30]
The mayor of Burlington directed del Pozo to create a strategy [31] for addressing the opioid crisis, using a public health approach. [32] He directed patrol officers to carry Naloxone, [33] created of the city's Opioid Policy Coordinator position, and staffed the police department with an epidemiologist and biostatistician. [34] The positions vetted police work for public health outcomes and assisted the city in formulating policies and programs to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with opioid use. [35]
Del Pozo's strategies also reflected the need for people with opioid addiction to have access to the medications proven to treat it, [36] [37] including prisoners, [38] and he set a policy where his department would not arrest people for unprescribed possession of buprenorphine. [39] [40] In 2020, the city of Philadelphia took the same position toward buprenorphine, citing Burlington's approach. [41] Under his strategy, the city coordinated efforts to link people to buprenorphine treatment at the local syringe service program and hospital emergency department, [42] and assisted in efforts to eliminate waiting lists for access to treatment. [43]
In 2018, the rest of Vermont saw a 20% increase in opioid overdose deaths, while Burlington's county saw a 50% decline, to the lowest levels since the state began keeping records. [44] The reduction was sustained through the end of 2019. [45]
In the winter of 2016, after a Burlington police officer killed Phil Grenon, a man who attacked the police with knives after a standoff, [46] del Pozo piloted the Police Executive Research Forum's (PERF) use of force guidelines and de-escalation curriculum. [47] [48] [49] The Reveal, a production of American Public Media, aired a segment about the incident: "When Tasers Fail." [50]
In 2018, del Pozo gave the highest award in the department to an officer who was in the path of a robbery suspect fleeing in a vehicle and would have been justified in opening fire on the vehicle, but chose not to, [51] saying that restraint was a valuable quality in a police officer. [52] He also investigated the Vermont State Police Academy for allegations that officers were being struck unexpectedly in the head during training, causing a pattern of concussions. [53] The academy settled a suit with an injured student and ceased delivering unexpected blows to the heads of its recruits. [54]
After the 9/11 terror attacks, the NYPD selected del Pozo to create its first intelligence post with the Arab world, based out of Amman, Jordan in 2005. [55] Embedded with the Jordanian National Police, he responded to suicide bombings at Jordanian hotels executed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and an attack on a Roman amphitheater. [56] He also responded to two attacks in Mumbai, India: a 2006 bombing of seven trains on the city's commuter rail, [57] [58] and the 2008 Lashkar-e-Taiba-led attack on downtown Mumbai itself, where gunmen attacked hotels, transportation hubs, tourist areas, and a Jewish cultural center. Del Pozo reported his analyses to the NYPD and other agencies, [59] assessing how these attacks could be replicated by exploiting vulnerabilities in New York City, [60] and what measures could be taken to prevent them. [61] His role was unique in that there was no other U.S. intelligence officer conducting work on behalf of a municipal police department in either region. [62]
In May 2016, PERF awarded del Pozo its annual Gary Hayes Memorial Award for innovation and leadership. [7]
Del Pozo resigned as chief on December 16, 2019, after disclosing that he had used an anonymous Twitter account to tweet at a critic of the city for an hour about the person's criticism of outdoor dining, the city's AmeriCorps program, and the renovation of public parks. [63] [64] He told The New York Times that the incident "taught me that nothing good ever comes from letting social media criticism get under your skin." [65]
In 2018, while training for the Lake Placid Ironman 70.3, del Pozo was seriously injured in a bicycle accident, including three skull fractures, brain hemorrhaging, a partially collapsed lung, and seven other fractures. [66] He was transported by emergency airlift to the ICU at the UVM Medical Center. [67] [68] After eight weeks of convalescence, he returned to full duty. [69] Citing concussion symptoms, del Pozo took a second medical leave in the summer of 2019. [70] [71]
Del Pozo married Sarah Carnevale in 2002 and has two sons. [72] He wrote and directed a narrative short film, Sunday 1287, [73] which screened at the Middlebury and Vermont International Film Festivals. [74] The film was based on a crime he investigated while commanding a precinct in the New York borough of the Bronx. An outdoors enthusiast, he has climbed New Hampshire's 48 highest mountains, [75] completed the Lake Placid Half Ironman and other triathlons, and written for publications about cycling and climbing. [76] [77]
Fentanyl is a highly potent synthetic piperidine opioid primarily used as an analgesic. It is 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine; its primary clinical utility is in pain management for cancer patients and those recovering from painful surgeries. Fentanyl is also used as a sedative. Depending on the method of delivery, fentanyl can be very fast acting and ingesting a relatively small quantity can cause overdose. Fentanyl works by activating μ-opioid receptors. Fentanyl is sold under the brand names Actiq, Duragesic, and Sublimaze, among others.
Naloxone, sold under the brand name Narcan among others, is an opioid antagonist, a medication used to reverse or reduce the effects of opioids. For example, it is used to restore breathing after an opioid overdose. Effects begin within two minutes when given intravenously, five minutes when injected into a muscle, and ten minutes as a nasal spray. Naloxone blocks the effects of opioids for 30 to 90 minutes.
A drug overdose is the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities much greater than are recommended. Typically the term is applied for cases when a risk to health is a potential result. An overdose may result in a toxic state or death.
Supervised injection sites (SIS) or drug consumption rooms (DCRs) are a health and social response to drug-related problems. They are fixed or mobile spaces where people who use drugs are provided with sterile drug use equipment and can use illicit drugs under the supervision of trained staff. They are usually located in areas where there is an open drug scene and where injecting in public places is common. The primary target group for DCR services are people who engage in risky drug use.
The Downtown Eastside (DTES) is a neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. One of the city's oldest neighbourhoods, the DTES is the site of a complex set of social issues, including disproportionately high levels of drug use, homelessness, poverty, crime, mental illness and sex work. It is also known for its strong community resilience, history of social activism, and artistic contributions.
Speedball, powerball, or over and under is the polydrug mixture of a stimulant with a depressant, usually an opioid. The most well-known mixture used for recreational drug use is that of cocaine and heroin; however, amphetamines can also be mixed with morphine and/or fentanyl. A speedball may be taken intravenously or by nasal insufflation.
Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a substance use disorder characterized by cravings for opioids, continued use despite physical and/or psychological deterioration, increased tolerance with use, and withdrawal symptoms after discontinuing opioids. Opioid withdrawal symptoms include nausea, muscle aches, diarrhea, trouble sleeping, agitation, and a low mood. Addiction and dependence are important components of opioid use disorder.
Carfentanil or carfentanyl, sold under the brand name Wildnil, is an extremely potent opioid analgesic used in veterinary medicine to anesthetize large animals such as elephants and rhinoceroses. It is an analogue of fentanyl, of which it is structurally derivative. It is typically administered in this context by tranquilizer dart. Carfentanil has also been used in humans to image opioid receptors. It has additionally been used as a recreational drug, typically by injection, insufflation, or inhalation. Deaths have been reported in association with carfentanil.
Xylazine is a structural analog of clonidine and an α2-adrenergic receptor agonist, sold under many trade names worldwide, most notably the Bayer brand name Rompun, as well as Anased, Sedazine and Chanazine.
An opioid overdose is toxicity due to excessive consumption of opioids, such as morphine, codeine, heroin, fentanyl, tramadol, and methadone. This preventable pathology can be fatal if it leads to respiratory depression, a lethal condition that can cause hypoxia from slow and shallow breathing. Other symptoms include small pupils and unconsciousness; however, its onset can depend on the method of ingestion, the dosage and individual risk factors. Although there were over 110,000 deaths in 2017 due to opioids, individuals who survived also faced adverse complications, including permanent brain damage.
The Boston Public Health Commission, the oldest health department in the United States, is an independent public agency providing a wide range of health services and programs. It is governed by a seven-member board of health appointed by the Mayor of Boston. Its mission is to "protect, preserve, and promote the health and well-being of all Boston residents, particularly those who are most vulnerable." The commission is headquartered at 1010 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston.
Miro Weinberger is an American politician who was the 42nd mayor of Burlington, Vermont. He was the city's first Democratic Party mayor since Gordon Paquette was defeated by Bernie Sanders in 1981. Weinberger was the Democratic Party chair for Chittenden County during the 2004 election cycle. He also was on the Burlington Airport Commission for nine years, as board president of the Turning Point Center of Chittenden County, a drug addiction recovery organization, and on the board of the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain.
Acetylfentanyl is an opioid analgesic drug that is an analog of fentanyl. Studies have estimated acetylfentanyl to be 15 times more potent than morphine, which would mean that despite being somewhat weaker than fentanyl, it is nevertheless still several times stronger than pure heroin. It has never been licensed for medical use and instead has only been sold on the illicit drug market. Acetylfentanyl was discovered at the same time as fentanyl itself and had only rarely been encountered on the illicit market in the late 1980s. However, in 2013, Canadian police seized 3 kilograms of acetylfentanyl. As a μ-opioid receptor agonist, acetylfentanyl may serve as a direct substitute for oxycodone, heroin or other opioids. Common side effects of fentanyl analogs are similar to those of fentanyl itself, which include itching, nausea, and potentially fatal respiratory depression. Fentanyl analogs have killed hundreds of people throughout Europe and the former Soviet republics since the most recent resurgence in use began in Estonia in the early 2000s, and novel derivatives continue to appear.
Thomas J. "T. J." Donovan Jr. is an American lawyer and politician who served as Vermont Attorney General from 2017 to 2022. He was first elected in 2016 with over 66 percent of the vote. He previously served for ten years as State's Attorney of Chittenden County, the most populous county in Vermont.
There is an ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States, originating out of both medical prescriptions and illegal sources. It has been called "one of the most devastating public health catastrophes of our time". The opioid epidemic unfolded in three waves. The first wave of the epidemic in the United States began in the late 1990s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), when opioids were increasingly prescribed for pain management, resulting in a rise in overall opioid use throughout subsequent years. The second wave was from an expansion in the heroin market to supply already addicted people. The third wave, starting in 2013, was marked by a steep tenfold increase in the synthetic opioid-involved death rate as synthetic opioids flooded the US market.
Howard Center is a Burlington, Vermont-based nonprofit organization that offers professional crisis and counseling services to children and adults; supportive services to individuals with autism and developmental disabilities who need help with education, employment, and life maintenance skills; counseling and medical services for those struggling with substance use disorders; and interventions and supports for adults with serious and persistent mental health challenges in Chittenden County, Vermont's most populous county. Howard Center collaborates with many community partners and is a United Way of Northwest Vermont-funded agency.
The opioid epidemic, also referred to as the opioid crisis, is the rapid increase in the overuse, misuse/abuse, and overdose deaths attributed either in part or in whole to the class of drugs called opiates/opioids since the 1990s. It includes the significant medical, social, psychological, demographic and economic consequences of the medical, non-medical, and recreational abuse of these medications.
Scott E. Hadland is a Canadian-American physician and scientist who serves as a pediatrician, and addiction specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he is the Chief of the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine. He previously served as an addiction specialist at the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center.
New Jersey's most recent revised policy was issued September 7, 2022 pursuant to P.L.2021, c.152 which authorized opioid antidotes to be dispensed without a prescription or fee. Its goal is to make opioid antidotes widely available, reducing mortality from overdose while decreasing morbidity in conjunction with sterile needle access, fentanyl test strips, and substance use treatment programs. A $67 million grant provided by the Department of Health and Human Services provides funding for naloxone as well as recovery services. This policy enables any person to distribute an opioid antidote to someone they deem at risk of an opioid overdose, alongside information regarding: opioid overdose prevention and recognition, the administration of naloxone, circumstances that warrant calling 911 for assistance with an opioid overdose, and contraindications of naloxone. Instructions on how to perform resuscitation and the appropriate care of an overdose victim after the administration of an opioid antidote should also be included. Community first aid squads, professional organizations, police departments, and emergency departments are required to "leave-behind" naloxone and information with every person who overdosed or is at risk of overdosing.
In response to the surging opioid prescription rates by health care providers that contributed to the opioid epidemic in the United States, US states began passing legislation to stifle high-risk prescribing practices. These new laws fell primarily into one of the following four categories:
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)