Local ISP trooper learns the reality of the drug crisis at US/Mexican border
POCATELLO, Idaho ((KIFI) - Six Idaho State Troopers recently returned from the U.S. Mexican border, and in the group was Idaho State Police Trooper Tyler Scheierman.
Scheierman has been with Idaho State Police for more than a decade.
He formerly worked in the K9 unit, but for the last seven years, he's been on the domestic highway enforcement team in Pocatello.
"Where I'm at down in the Pocatello area, we primarily work Interstate 15," Scheierman said. "So the fentanyl is coming through there very at a high rate. It used to be the the meth, and now it's the fentanyl."
May was Scheierman’s first training mission to the U.S.-Mexico border.
The purpose of the ISP deployment was two-fold: To assist the Texas Department of Public Safety Combat Human Trafficking, Smuggling and the ongoing drug crisis at the border.
And to learn advanced drug concealment methods while gaining first hand experience in the latest techniques. That way the troopers could better train their fellow law enforcement officers back at home.
Governor Little first sent a team of specialized state troopers to Arizona in 2021 as part of the American Governors’ Border Strike Force.
According to Idaho.gov, "from 2020 to 2021, the rate of fentanyl-related overdose deaths doubled in Idaho."
ISP Col. Kedrick Wills says, nearly 100% of the fentanyl coming into Idaho comes through the southern border.
"One of the things it was said early on in one of the meetings held with Governor Little with that that was said in that meeting was we cannot arrest our way out of this problem only," ISP Col. Kedrick Wills said. "Part of what we learned there were that was a trends of of how they're smuggling the drugs in. But the other part that we want to know is how can we look at this more at a more holistic view in Idaho and take an Idaho approach, because it's unique here."
During his experience, Scheierman said he encountered the realities of human smuggling and drug trafficking.
"We were doing traffic stops on the highways encountered humans in the trunk of cars being smuggled from the border trying to get past checkpoints," Scheierman said. "We encountered pretty much every kind of drug including prescription pills marijuana all the way to crack cocaine.”
But he also learned the latest drug trends, concealment and operations. Now, he feels like it's his responsibility to give his best to combat illegal drugs.
"I protect the people that can't protect themselves at this point," Schierman said. "Any fentanyl, we can get off the streets... I take it as we're protecting, you know, a child or a person from potential overdose of that."
