The Haines Borough Police Department’s new officer is hoping to ramp up enforcement of drug and alcohol-related crimes, including driving under the influence and over-serving at local bars.

Chris Brown, 37, started on the job Feb. 12. Before moving to Haines, Brown worked for seven years as a sheriff’s deputy with the Nez Perce County Sheriff’s Department in Lewiston, Idaho. He has also worked in juvenile detention and private security.

One pattern Brown has observed in his short tenure here is bartenders over-serving intoxicated customers, which is against the law. “That (law) is just not followed much, and we’re hoping to curb that a little bit.”

Interim chief Josh Dryden said Brown’s goals aren’t a department-wide policy, but the personal ambitions of one officer.

“Every police officer has a certain pet peeve or certain topics that he pursues. DUIs is one of Chris’s,” Dryden said. “That’s just something that he is passionate about, that he sees an issue with and wants to improve upon, and that’s fine.”

In northern Idaho, a recent spate of vehicular manslaughter cases has resulted in the families of the deceased suing the bars in civil court for continuing to serve intoxicated people who later drove and killed others, Brown said.

“We want to remind them – the different bar owners and stuff like that – that (victims’ families) can go after them, especially if we know for a fact that this is happening. We don’t want that to happen to the businesses around here, but they need to be aware of that,” Brown said.

Brown’s family hasn’t made the move up from the Lower 48 yet, and he’s been spending time at the library, American Bald Eagle Foundation and other hubs around town to get to know people in the community.

“There are a tremendous amount of good people here, but there is a lot of bad element here for this size (town). I came from a town that is this size, and there’s not near quite the element there as there is here. A lot of drug use, lots of alcohol abuse. There’s just some stuff we really need to work on,” he said.

Brown said he is certain heroin and meth are being used in town, as well as lots of marijuana. Asked why possession or distribution arrests aren’t occurring, Brown speculated that it might be due to the department’s lack of staff.

“I think since they have been kind of short-staffed here, they haven’t been able to be real proactive. And they certainly haven’t been able to have a task force to attack it and really get at it,” he said.

Even in the short time he has been here, Brown said he has noticed domestic violence and other alcohol-related problems at night, when officers aren’t on patrol but are instead on stand-by.

“We need an officer or two on at all times every single day,” he said. If that is a budgeting or staffing decision, “the people who control the money and make all the decisions in this area need to be more concerned about it,” Brown said.

Police officers tend to get a bad reputation due to the actions of a few individuals, Brown said, which isn’t fair, as most people become police officers to work an exciting job that also helps people.

“We do a job that is scrutinized more than any other job on earth,” he said. “A doctor kills one of his patients, all of a sudden everybody doesn’t hate all doctors. But if a police officer accidentally kills somebody or does something wrong or is just a bad apple, then every police officer pays for that.”

What people should understand about officers, he said, is that they are trying to work toward the greater good.

“We will offend some people when we contact them at nine o’clock at night out in the middle of nowhere and 20-question them about why the hell they’re there. Because we don’t want them doing anything bad. If they are just there to have a nice time or they are on a date with their spouse or something, then that’s fine. You have to ruffle a few feathers to make some changes.”

Brown said if there is one thing he respects in people, it’s honesty. “It’s really a slap in our face to lie to us. So I’m much more likely to arrest somebody or not have any respect for them if they lie to me,” he said.