Police bring Christmas cheer to unseen victims of opioid crisis

Bradenton Police Chief Melanie Bevan said the good news is that the number opioid overdoses in Bradenton has dropped significantly, but the bad news is children of addicted parents are being placed in foster care in record numbers.

“The sheriff and I are unified in our belief that through aggressive enforcement in weeding out the drug dealers, that it’s working,” Bevan said. “But we have a vast array of children who are still impacted financially and emotionally and are in need of support for Christmas. How sad it can be around Christmas in particular when people can be judgmental, but nobody can cast blame on the child.”

Through the police department’s annual fundraiser gathering in which officers are required to bring one toy per person as an entry fee, as well as the department’s toy drive that focused on giving to children affected by the opioid crisis, several thousand dollars worth of toys and cash were collected this year.

Bevan said this year’s efforts far surpass last year’s, and hundreds of local children will have a Christmas worth remembering.

“What a lot of people probably don’t realize is the number of families we touch from varying backgrounds,” Bevan said. “A lot of these kids are in homes with domestic violence or their parents are incarcerated, but more so this year are the number of kids that have been removed from their homes because a parent or parents are suffering from addiction. I don’t know the exact numbers, but the amount of kids being placed in foster care right now is up a couple hundred percent.”

This week, the department also had 130 kids at its Honor the Badge event where more than half the department volunteered time to take a child shopping for toys. Hope Family Services was the beneficiary of the department’s fundraiser gathering, as well as the toy drive.

Lt. Brian Thiers said all the credit goes to the community.

“We had upwards of 300 to 400 toys at our fundraiser and places like the Farmhouse and Pinebrook Ironwood really stepped it up for us with the toy drive that brought in about $5,000 in value and another $2,000 in cash donations,” Thiers said. “All of this is funded 100 percent by the community, and it’s really mind boggling this year how much the community stepped up. It was amazing.”

Bevan said Christmas is a time that is meaningful to her and always has been.

“My parents didn’t have much, but I always had that one special present under the tree, and that was our goal for these kids,” she said. “I always tell people that law enforcement officers have few responsibilities. We are here to protect and safeguard the lives and property of our citizens, but the next part of it is to try and make their lives better. To positively police this community so people have a life that is better through our efforts. It’s really that simple.”

As part of that spirit, the department recently launched the Bradenton Blue Foundation, which can be used to pay for safety equipment for officers or health and welfare activities. But Bevan said the department wanted to do something else.

“We found two families who were homeless and sleeping in their cars, and we put those families in an apartment and started them off with the first month’s payment,” Bevan said. “We were happy to do that, but those kids still didn’t have Christmas presents, so while the children were shopping at Honor the Badge, our officers were at their apartment decorating it for Christmas and supplying the family with food.”

Bevan said the parents have jobs so they were confident the helping hand was enough for them to maintain a home for their children.

“Seeing kids sleeping in a car, that’s heartbreaking,” Bevan said. “Now they have somewhere to wake up and will have presents under the tree. That’s why I love my job.”

Thiers is often on the scene of tragic and violent incidents. He sees the tragedies unfold, and through the department’s partnership with Bridge of Life he has noticed a “huge uptick in foster care related to the opioid problems. It’s unbelievable. Getting to be a part of something like this is nice to have interaction with families outside of investigation. There is a human element in all of us, especially this time of year.”

This story was originally published December 21, 2017 at 12:01 PM with the headline "Police bring Christmas cheer to unseen victims of opioid crisis."