Lac du Flambeau board hears drug presentation

Approximately 35 minutes the Jan. 10 meeting of the Lac du Flambeau town board was set aside for a presentation on the illicit drug situation in the Lac du Flambeau area.

Lac du Flambeau Tribal police chief T.J. Bill and investigator George Hopfensperger addressed the topic.

“I’ve been here with the department for just under six years now, tasked primarily with combating the drug problem in this area,” Hopfensperger said. 

Bill said he has nearly 20 years experience in law enforcement and succeeded Robert Brandenburg as tribal police chief a little more than three years ago .He said he’s been with the department since 2013.

Prior to that, Bill said he was with the Vilas County Sheriff’s Office and got his start in law enforcement with the city of Augusta’s police department in Eau Claire County. 

“We were asked to come tonight to present on drug trends, what’s going on in our community but the drug trends we’re going to be talking about are also in Vilas County, Oneida County, Lincoln County, throughout the nation ... worldwide,” Bill said. “What we’ve been seeing since ... everything’s related back to COVID. I hate to saying that but it is.”

In the summer of 2020 the department began to see “an influx in fentanyl coming into our community,” he explained.

“One of the big reasons why that was was when they had that two-week shutdown ... they (state and federal governments) had shut down the ports coming into the states,” Bill said. “When that happened, the container/shipping units were being stockpiled. Once everything opened back up, a lot of the stuff was just rushed through to the states as well as Canada and other countries that were on shutdown.”

He said that created the fentanyl influx in the United States. 

“It started hitting us pretty bad in August of 2020,” Bill said. “Any drug in any community, the number one drug is marijuana. Hands down. By far.”

As for harder drugs,  law enforcement in the Lac du Flambeau area “and throughout the state” are seeing  methamphetamine and fentanyl, he continued.

“With our community, it fluctuates,” Bill said. “The last two months, a lot of it’s been fentanyl. Two months prior to that, it’s been methamphetamine. So, it kinda comes and goes.”

He said his department takes 5,000 to 6,000 calls a year. 

“That’s tribal, that’s town that we respond to,” Bill said. “Out of those, we have approximately 800 to 900 drug-related arrests a year.”

He said if an individual isn’t found, charges against that person are referred to the Vilas County district attorney’s office “and they make charging decisions.”

“In lieu of arresting an individual, we also have the opportunity to issue a citation for that offense,” Bill said. “So, that’s included in that 800 to 900 arrests a year.”

For 2023, he estimated the number of arrests officers in his department have made was between 800 and 850 with between 300 to 400 of those drug arrests “within our community.”

“We have other arrests that we have participated in outside the community, such as in Ashland and the upper peninsula of Michigan,” Bill said. “We just had a case where we had some arrests that happened down in Appleton with a large amount of fentanyl. We work with multiple (state) agencies as well as federal agencies.”

He put gloves on and walked among the audience showing them samples of fentanyl and methamphetamine contained in small vials and in different stages a user might consume it. 

“It kind of gives you an idea what this fentanyl looks like,” Bill said. “It comes in like a chalk material. Individuals will break it down into a powder and then they’ll either snort it or inhale it through their nose with a cylinder device or sometimes, they’ll smoke it off of aluminum foil or they’ll inject it with a syringe. They’ll do the same thing with the methamphetamine.”

Ninety percent of the methamphetamine that comes into the state of Wisconsin comes from Mexican drug cartels, he added.

“The average for the United States, about 80 percent of it is coming from Mexico,” Bill said. “The majority of the fentanyl, just before COVID, was being manufactured in China and transported over to Europe, being shipped over here to the United States and Canada and Mexico.”

What he said is happening now is the cartels have “made this deal” with China in which the fentanyl ingredients are sent to Mexico where the fentanyl is produced. 

“It’s just logistically easier for them to bring it into the United States and Canada,” Bill said. “That’s what we’re seeing right now.”

“They (the cartels) don’t even distribute the fentanyl in their country because it is so deadly to their own country,” Hopfensperger said. “It all goes to the States because that’s where the money is. It’s a kind of warfare against our country, to be honest.”

He said the drugs are coming many different forms. 

“Just about any form you can imagine,” Hopfensperger said. “Pill presses at a ginormous rate, can kick out anywhere from 100 to 1,000 pills per hour. They can make them in all different forms, shapes, colors, add different colors ... it’s just food coloring.”

He said the reason people hear about fentanyl overdoses is because the drug is so lethal it takes a very small amount to result in an overdose. 

Later, Bill and Hopfensperger fielded questions from the audience. One of them was related to cameras that have been installed and whether they’re helping in law enforcement efforts.

“They help tremendously,” Bill said. “They (suspects) know there’s cameras and they still do it in front of the cameras. I mean, we have 355 or 356 cameras within the tribal community that we monitor ... and they still do it in front of the cameras.”

Hopfensperger said the police department gets calls “all the time” from security and surveillance personnel at the Lake of The Torches casino. 

“Anytime they see suspicious drug activity actively happening, they’re on the phone with us,” he said. “They have very good surveillance footage of whatever’s going on.” 

Bill said the plate reading cameras in place along State Highways 70 and 47, as well as County Highway H, are also helpful in tracking drug activity and those involved. 

“Those work as well,” he said. “Sometimes, they’re time-delayed because they’re on the internet or cellular based, but there’s times we got ‘em coming into town.”

If people see something they believe to be suspicious activity, Bill and Hopfensperger urged them call to law enforcement.

“If it turns into nothing, then you feel better,” he said. “Maybe we just spook ‘em and they don’t come back. On the opposite side of that, if you don’t call and they are using, they’re doing something and maybe somebody overdoses ... I hate to say that anybody would do it but it does happen. They could just dump somebody there, unfortunately. So, call. Please call.”

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].