ARLINGTON, Wash. — An unsupervised girl in the Smokey Point Walmart bathroom picked up a needle after someone dropped it.
Christina Krum was in the women’s bathroom watching over her own daughter near the sink. She had a suspicion drugs were being used by a woman in a bathroom stall was using drugs. A girl walked in and took the neighboring stall.
“The next thing I know, there was a needle that hit the floor,” Krum said. “The little girl grabbed it and said: ‘Here you go!’”
Krum found the girl’s father waiting outside the bathroom. They got her out of there and then reported the incident to store management.
Det. Rory Bolter with Arlington police said the Smokey Point area near Walmart is a trouble spot for his department because of the transient population.
“I would venture to say about 90 percent of our homeless in Smokey Point are heroin addicts,” said Bolter, who is part of a team that tracks the most wanted criminals in town.
Bolter said the department does everything it can to keep up with the heroin epidemic in Snohomish County. The local health district estimates there are about 100 opioid overdoes each year, in the county with hundreds more arrested for buying and selling opioids.
According to the Snohomish County Health District, one in every 17 high school seniors tries heroin at some point before they graduate.
Arlington has two drug dogs to help keep up.
Bolter said the department has shifted many of its resources toward educating people before they become addicted. He said simply arresting people does not seem to be slowing the problem due to a lack of treatment facilities.
“You’re losing a ton of money by booking them to jail or taking them to the hospital because you don’t have a treatment facility for them to go into,” Bolter said.
Krum said for now, with the current issues, parent have one option while in public.
“The epidemic is so bad these days that you have to… protect your kids,” Krum said. “There should be no shame for a man taking his daughter into the restroom.”
Cox Media Group
