TRAVERSE CITY — The Traverse City Police Department gave 9&10 a demonstration of their TruNarc kit.
The device is meant to limit officers' exposure to potentially dangerous substances out in the field.
The TruNarc allows the department to identify a wide variety of things, from mislabeled pills to even cocaine and methamphetamine.
Sergeant Reed Shea with the Traverse City Police Department says it’s cut down harmful exposures drastically.
“It’s allowed us to do our job a lot more efficiently and effectively safe,” says Shea. “Even a few years back when this wasn’t when we didn’t have this kind of device, we would have to do the old school testing, with little kits. And it really just put us a lot more in contact with some of those illegal drugs. And as everybody’s aware, there were a lot of incidences of officers having overdoses just from trying to test the drugs or having contact with them.”
It’s one of three TruNarc devices in the county; one belonging to the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office, the other to the Michigan State Police.
