Fort Worth leaders talk fentanyl efforts: "We have a team dedicated to finding them"
FORT WORTH - "How to fight fentanyl" was one of the topics at the first Fort Worth city council meeting of 2024.
Police chief Neil Noakes was among those who spoke on the subject.
"We are doing everything we can, including working with our schools, our administrators, our teachers, our counselors," Noakes said of outreach efforts.
And for the dealers, he had a warning. "We have a team dedicated to finding them, hunting them down, putting them behind bars," he said. "And we will prosecute them to the absolute highest point we can - including murder charges."
Officials with the fire department and MedStar also talked about helping the victims and their families.
The presentation included remarks about the CBS News Texas reporting on Fort Worth PD's fentanyl overdose response team.
"Really special thanks to your incredible team and the work they're doing," said Mayor Mattie Parker. "They've gotten some well-deserved press from CBS 11."
Noakes told us he already knew the officers were doing incredible work. Now, he says, the public can see it too.
"And I think it's important for people to see this. It can be scary to know these kinds of things are going on," he said, "But I think it can be encouraging to know we have a team of officers doing nothing but responding to incidents like this."
If you haven't had a chance to watch the full reports, you can find them here:
Inside the first fentanyl police unit in North Texas Part I: "It's a sad sight of humanity"