Overtown Commander claims miscommunication on needle exchange program.

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Miami police reaffirm support for needle exchange for addicts after ‘miscommunication’. Somebody better tell the Commander we are not in the business in arresting drug addicts.

Miami’s fledgling needle-exchange program — approved by lawmakers with the goal of helping addicts stay disease free — has been praised by health authorities and the county’s top police departments.

Just two months ago, one Miami police officer spoke glowingly about the program at a press conference called to tout its early successes.

So it was a surprise when the program reported this week that a Miami police commander and three others officers showed up at the Overtown facility to proclaim that the department didn’t support needle exchange and “would continue to arrest our participants.”

“I am so disappointed in the Miami Police Department and Commander [Nicole] Davis for continued harassment of our participants,” Dr. Hansel Tookes, the program’s founder, wrote in an email on Tuesday to the state attorney’s office.

“When our participants are arrested while living within the confines of the law, their civil rights are violated.”

But two days after the email was sent, the program and the police talked it out —and the department’s legal unit will be issuing a bulletin to patrol officers explaining the needle exchange.

Miami Police Chief Rodolfo Llanes on Wednesday reiterated the department’s support, stressing that the needle-exchange project was addressing an important health issue in Miami.

“We’re very supportive of the program,” Llanes said, adding he hopes it will grow to offer more services for addicts in need of treatment.

Davis said Thursday that there was “clearly a miscommunication,” and that one of her officers had only explained they had no choice but to arrest users if they were involved in crimes.

“We don’t stop people just because they are getting needles,” Davis said, adding: “I never said we don’t support the program.”

Davis, who is commander of Overtown’s neighborhood-relations unit and a member of the county’s Opioid Task Force, characterized the encounter as brief and “a friendly exchange.”

Tookes, on Thursday, was satisfied that the program was getting support.

“I think it’s awesome they are saying publicly they support the program — and are going to issue an advisory to their officers,” he said.

The IDEA Program opened in November in a neighborhood hardest hit by the epidemic of heroin and fentanyl ravaging the streets of Miami-Dade.

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Emelina Martinez, an employee at the Idea Exchange needle exchange program, showing reporters clean paraphernelia given to addicts in Overtown.
C.M. GUERRERO. cmguerrero@elnuevoherald.com

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/loca...#storylink=cpy

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Davis said Thursday that there was “clearly a miscommunication,” and that one of her officers had only explained they had no choice but to arrest users if they were involved in crimes.

Miss communication my ass

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/loca...#storylink=cpy

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Another lazy, minority do nothing as a commander. Waste of a uniform!

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Dimelo Lebron