Muskingum County Sheriff Talks About New Drug Identification Device
MUSKINGUM COUNTY, Ohio. – The Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office has a new device that makes identifying drugs much easier for officers in the field.
TacticID is a handheld device that can scan through an evidence bag to identify what type of drug it is. Muskingum County Sheriff, Matt Lutz said this device makes identifying drugs much safer for the deputies. Prior to the device being implemented into service, the sheriff’s department stopped doing field tests due to the risks of handling the drugs.
“Some of the stuff was being absorbed into the skin, some of the stuff was being absorbed through gloves. So we terminated our road deputies doing any kind of field testing. We got wind of a new machine that actually will field test through the container or the plastic bags that the drugs are put in by our detectives and by our road guys,” Said Lutz.
Lutz says the number one priority is to keep the force safe, and this device will go a long way doing that. The drugs still need to be sent off to a lab to do an official test, though the TacticID does give a preliminary test. Lutz said they’ve had the device for three or four weeks and some of the officers have received training from the company they got it from. He is unsure the number of times they have actually used it but he said it has been several times.
“The machine will scan through the bag. Normally, you have to have stuff out of the container or out of the bag to be able to scan that stuff to get some type of idea of what it is. This thing is designed to go right through the product that’s holding the drug and analyzes it and gives us a preliminary report back of what kind of ingredients that thing contains and what kind of drug it probably is,” Lutz added.
Lutz wanted to thank Muskingum County Prosecutor, Mike Haddox along with the County Commissioners and the Zanesville Police Department for funding to get the TacticID. Lutz says the Zanesville Police Department paired with them to get the device.
