GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A drug enforcement team that covers nine southwest Michigan counties will start using a mapping app to track overdoses in real time.
“If we know in real-time that there are people dying from overdoses right now in this city block, we can move law enforcement resources to that area,” said Michigan State Police First Lt. Richard Pazder, head of the Southwest Enforcement Team (SWET), which covers Barry, Van Buren, Kalamazoo and Calhoun counties, among others.
“We can address that problem immediately, try to take the drug dealer off the streets, get those lethal drugs off the streets,” Pazder said.
The app, called ODMAP, is free to law enforcement and was developed in the Baltimore-area, though a federal program with funds from the national Office of Drug Control Policy.
“ODMAP is a real-time online tool that law enforcement officers can use to not only record and log the overdoses that happen, but to also get weekly reports and (automatic alerts) on any spikes that might happen in overdose deaths in the area,” Pazder said.
“It’s a tool for law enforcement to come together and take an all-hands-on-deck approach in real time while the problem is happening to help solve it,” Pazder said.