Rise in certain crimes likely linked to opioid epidemic in Santa Cruz, Chief says

It’s been six months since the Santa Cruz Police Department began releasing monthly crime reports, and we’ve been tracking some of those trends.

“I think it’s important for people to know what’s going on in their city. Again they can affect policy and they can talk to the chief, they can talk to the council members, they can talk to city management and say hey here’s what we think would make sense for our city,” says Santa Cruz Police Chief Andy Mills.

Mills tells us crime in Santa Cruz County has seen an overall rise of three percent, but aggravated assault is down. There are other concerns, however.

“On the rise are things such as burglary which really concerns us and that people are breaking into peoples’ homes and vehicles and businesses and that is something that we really care deeply about,” says Mills.

Drug use is also ticking up. Mills says the opioid crisis could potentially be a factor in the rise of other crimes.

“We certainly do know that using heroin is really expensive and you have to get the money for it somewhere.”

With the epidemic sweeping the county officers have trained to use narcan, a drug that counteracts a drug overdose. In just 4 months one Santa Cruz Officer has saved two lives using it.

“Narcan is really an exciting thing because you know some people are overdosing on heroin and we have an officer who was able to give the antidote twice now and save the person’s life and bring them back from literally the brink of death. We are excited so Bernadette has done a fabulous job with that.”

KION’s Ashley Keehn will have more on the rises in crime at six.