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Altoona residents had cause for feeling somewhat optimistic when they began to digest the information in Police Chief Joe Merrill's annual crime report to the city council on May 8, focusing on 2022.
However, about three months earlier -- in February -- the news was hardly settling when Blair County Coroner Patricia Ross released her annual report covering the same year.
A better description is that the Ross report contains information nothing short of deeply troubling, with a worse prospect potentially looming for 2023.
People of the city and outlying areas need to acknowledge that, despite all of this area's positive attributes, there are serious problems here nonetheless -- difficult problems that might demand revised or toughened strategies beyond what currently are being pursued or even envisioned.
Consider Merrill's report, which indicated that the Altoona Police Department handled about the same number of crimes last year as it did in 2021.
According to Merrill, the more serious Part 1 offenses were up 10%, but the less serious Part II offenses were down 4.4%.
Meanwhile, total offenses declined 1%, to 3,714. While it can be suggested that 3,714 total offenses are hard to accept for a city of Altoona's size and overall positive characteristics, that statistic is much more palatable, all considered, than what Ross revealed -- that Blair County drug deaths set a record in 2022.
"We are out of control," Ross said.
It seems almost as if efforts are lax in warning about the dangers associated with certain illegal substances, when that, in fact, is not so. But either drug users choose to ignore warnings, if they in fact are listening, or the death rate is indicative of terribly flawed thinking that "a fatal overdose can't happen to me."
The 70 Blair drug deaths of 2022 prove otherwise.
Too bad there isn't an electronic billboard in or around the city keeping a constant tally of illegal-drug deaths, with an accompanying message in question form: "Am I next?"
Those engaged in illegal-drug use need to be pummeled with the bad news and potential outcome that they face. They also need to start acknowledging the pain with which family members and friends might someday have to deal because of their refusal to seek help -- and refusal or lack of bravery in terms of trying to accept and conquer the challenges tied to withdrawal.
Merrill said some numbers in his report were the product of special enforcement efforts, such as the one involving intoxicated drivers. DUI arrests were up by 18%.
But it is virtually impossible to set up an illegal-drug highway checkpoint capable of curbing overdose deaths in the home environment or some other private location, which would bring the overdose death toll down.
In Blair, overdose statistics for 2022 were worsened by the abuse of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, and xylazine, a non-opioid sedative used by veterinarians in the treatment of animals.
Why victims failed to heed the numerous warnings that have been disseminated about those substances is anyone's guess, except possibly the mere "hunger" for an extended "high."
While it can be surmised that the city police department might be making some progress on the crime front, the coroner, by herself, cannot produce a more positive statistical report.
That task belongs to everyone else.