Manitowoc County Sheriff Dan Hartwig
“People can be creative when it comes to trying to sneak drugs or other contraband into jail.”
Manitowoc County Sheriff Dan Hartwig made that comment while on WOMT’s Be My Guest program Monday.
He said that individuals will go to great lengths to bring drugs into the county jail.
And, the sheriff says his staff does a great job of searching in a legal way to prevent that from happening.
“We had to deal with that a couple weeks ago,” he explained. “We had two inmates overdose at the same time. One of our corrections officers, we had to send to the hospital for a potential fentanyl overdose as well, because he got powder on his face. It’s dangerous all the way around.”
Sheriff Hartwig said he was on a zoom call recently with DAs, police officers, and sheriffs in Oregon where, in his words, “they’ve pretty much legalized everything” and Maine is looking to do the same thing.
“Just hearing some of the stories from the District Attorneys on how much property crime has went up,” he said. “Her house has been broken in to, her vehicle broken into. Basically, she is saying that’s now a thing of life. They are losing population in Oregon because businesses are closing because the theft problem is so bad, and the homeless problem is so bad.”
The sheriff added, “Drugs affect a lot of different things in your way of life. That’s why if that (the legalization) ever comes around here in Wisconsin, I’ll be on with the legislators immediately. But, hopefully it doesn’t come to that point.”
