In Plymouth, in 1985 when Michael Botieri graduated from the police academy, the population of the town was about forty thousand. Now it’s close to sixty-five thousand. During that time Botieri rose through the ranks to Captain, then to Chief of Police. He retires on Tuesday, June 1st.
Bobbi Clark has more:
During his career, Botieri experienced the move from the old police station on Russell Street to the present headquarters on Long Pond Road. As the population increased, one high school, shared with Carver, became two new Plymouth high schools. And, along with many other developments, the Chief saw the duties of police officers expand:
“I think it’s evolved. I don’t think anyone would have thought that we would be disseminating medications such as Narcan, and those type of things. We were never trained to do it, it was outside the box.“
Involvement in the community through the Plymouth County Task force led to the development of a strategy to connect with drug users soon after an overdose. Botieri and former East Bridgewater Chief Scott Allen were the law enforcement representatives to the Task Force. Botieri says experts in the medical field explained that:
“A time frame for intervention after an overdose was 24 to 48 hours, so we did set up a program within 24 to 48 hours we issued a follow up. We then had a plain clothes officer in a plain, unmarked vehicle with a recovery health-care clinician and we would bring that resource to your house and attempt to connect with you care in that way.”
The prevention program, developed with former Chief Scott Allen, become an opportunity for Botieri to go right to work after retirement, with a company whose goal is to spread the use of this drug prevention program.
