Fort Dodge Rotary Club
From the Webster County Sheriff’s Office
Chief Deputy Derek Christie from the Webster County Sheriff’s Department has been with Webster County 13 years in various roles. The Webster County Sheriff’s Department has 66 employees serving as road deputies, detectives, dispatchers,or jailers.
Chief Deputy Christie has noticed trends in homelessness and drug-related crimes. Billions of dollars are going to states and counties across the country to combat opioid issues. Locally, about $60,000 of these funds go to fund a position dedicated to narcotic-related crimes. Some would argue that people addicted to substances should go to treatment rather than the penal system. However, it is not uncommon for the point of rehabilitation to start with an arrest.
Chief Deputy Christie is working on a K-9 unit. Historically there have been three in the area, but now they are down to one. Fundraising is currently happening to fund a K-9 unit, and it would be a great asset.
Another current initiative is the In-house Arrest Program. The jail census is high, making it a challenge for non-violent offenders to serve the couple of days they’re sentenced to jail for offenses like OWI. Ankle monitors are starting to be used. A geo-fence is put around the offender’s house, which alerts the department when the ankle monitor goes outside the area. This has taken some pressure off the jail, which usually holds around 44-48 people.
Work is being done to consider having Emergency Medical-Trained Dispatchers. This would enable dispatch to instruct callers how to administer basic medical care until an ambulance arrives.
Detective Cody Harris has been in law enforcement for 15 years and works exclusively to combat narcotics.
Harris said much crime involves either meth or fentanyl. Fentanyl is pressed into pills, often in varying amounts. Illegal fentanyl is not measured like regulated drugs, so one person can OD on two pills whereas another person could survive taking five pills.
Efforts go to taking drugs off the streets by finding and incarcerating distributors. They look at who has drugs and who they got them from. Harris works with people willing to purchase drugs to accomplish this. There is a lot of paperwork to get a purchaser approved. Once the green light is given to use a purchaser, there are additional steps. The department searches the purchaser and their car. They’re given “sterilized money.” The purchaser wears a recording device to gather evidence. The purchaser and officers meet at a pre-determined location before and after the drug bust for the searches. The hope is to get enough evidence to get a federal indictment. So far in 2025, there have been 10 drug buys with 13 oz of meth purchased.
Harris shared a couple of particularly interesting points. One, "street cred” goes up when a dealer’s customer overdoses. Drug users consider the dealer as having “the good stuff” that isn’t diluted. Two, good dealers are not users.