A Ketchikan grand jury recently indicted four people and police arrested a fifth on felony drug charges, adding to a growing list of about 20 people accused of major crimes linked to local fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine use.
Outside the courtroom, though, the broader community is bearing the brunt of drugs’ local impact. The topic came up at a Ketchikan City Council meeting on Dec. 11.
Homelessness and addiction weren’t on the City Council’s meeting agenda. But according to downtown business owners who took the podium, they should’ve been. They said homelessness and drug addiction have become problems too big to ignore — problems that now affect their income.
“And it’s scary for entrepreneurs and people who want to have this hope and a dream we talked about in 2017. Why would you?” asked Jamie Palmer.
Palmer opened The Captain’s Lady, a downtown gift shop, in 2017. She’s also a Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly member, but attended the meeting on her own behalf.
Palmer told the city council that she believes in the town, but when she looks outside and sees drugs being passed around in duffel bags, that belief gets challenged. Palmer is frustrated by what she calls a lack of punitive action.
“Unfortunately, here, you can go and rob somebody and what is it $950 and get a slap on the hand. If you do that multiple times to a little business like mine, I don’t have a business anymore. It’s garbage,” Palmer complained.
Matt Pressley, a local landlord, had a similar story. He said the drug and homelessness problems are frustrating his tenants and he’s received videos of people “shooting up” and defecating on his porch.
“Now every one of my tenants is threatening to move out,” he said. “It’s like a bad horror movie. I have great tenants and we have a known fentanyl dealer directly across from us. We literally have not had a full night’s sleep in three weeks from the screaming and hollering.”
What both Pressley and Palmer demanded is simple: to hear officials address it. To see it on meeting agendas.
Community leaders will be talking more about it soon. At the end of January, members of the U.S. National Guard will arrive in Ketchikan to help establish an Emergency Action Plan. They’ll work through the Local Emergency Planning Commission with groups like the police department and EMS on best practices related to Fentanyl and how to utilize the Alaska National Guard’s Civil Support Team.
Civil Support Teams are generally called upon in the event of a natural or man-made disaster or when there are substances that local authorities cannot safely handle or identify.
Law enforcement and downtown business owners aren’t the only ones on the front lines of addiction and homelessness in the city. Neysa Dominguez is an ER doctor in the local hospital. She spoke to KRBD in a coffee shop on her day off.
“There’s people who have come in (to the Emergency Department) and required several doses of (the overdose-reversing drug) Narcan. And they’re like, ‘I did meth. I wasn’t expecting this outcome. Like, I wasn’t trying to get high, I was trying to smoke meth.’” Dominguez recounted. “So, we’re seeing a little bit of that contamination where people are unintentionally overdosing. And they’re like, ‘That wasn’t the effect I was looking for.’”
When a new batch of drugs arrives in town, Dominguez knows.
“You’ll see upticks. And you kind of get an idea when something has hit the town,” she said. “You’ll start to see a few more people come in more frequently. We’ll say, ‘Oh, something got to town,’ or, ‘Somebody got into a bad batch,’ because you’ll see more people overdosing because it’s stronger.”
And yes – fentanyl and heroin and methamphetamine are dangerous. But Dominguez said the most destructive presence in Ketchikan is alcohol.
“The drugs are there. Absolutely,” she said. “And you see people with methamphetamine, you see people who are trying to do a different drug – maybe fentanyl – in their system. But alcohol is above and beyond the most exhausting thing that we see.”
Dominguez said people will come off the streets too inebriated to care for themselves. Often, she sees them every day, or every other day. Sometimes for decades. She sees their decline.
“It’s difficult,” the doctor admitted. “Just because you can see it in different stages, right? You see the young kids experimenting with it. And same thing with drugs. And you see them as they get older and deeper into it.”
For Dominguez, as an emergency medicine provider in a small community full of familiar faces, this can take a mental toll. But there are also lights at the end of the tunnel.
“Or you see people who get cleaned up, and it’s awesome,” she said. “And you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh. Yeah, that’s so great!’”
When patients stop showing up, it could be for two reasons. And sometimes, hopefully, it’s the better one. Dominguez said recovery is possible. As a doctor in this community, she sees it.
Ten of the active felony cases in Ketchikan’s court system originated this year. They involve both residents and people accused of bringing drugs to town – on ferries, on planes, and by mail. As the cases are still in proceedings, all are innocent until proven guilty.
Get in touch with the author at jack@krbd.org.
