Erie County Sheriff Timothy B. Howard announces his office has two newly certified Drug Recognition Experts (DRE) active within the Patrol Division. The Deputies recently completed the DRE course hosted and certified by the state. They are working in the Sheriff’s Office patrol districts assisting with DWI-Drug investigations.
The DRE School is a 3-week, intensive training program to recognize the signs of impairment and the drug classification. DREs use observation skills and physical indicators to determine impairment and the category of drug impairing the subject.
The DRE School is sponsored by the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee and supervised by New York State’s DRE Coordinator Renee Borden. Candidates complete a 2-week classroom session locally followed by a week-long practical session in Jacksonville, Florida. There, the candidates perform multiple DRE examinations on volunteers who use drugs within the various categories.
The Sheriff’s Office has four certified DREs on patrol and has been assisting local agencies with impaired driving for a few years.
The Sheriff’s Office also has a Deputy who is a certified DRE instructor for the program and acts as the Region 7 Coordinator for New York. This Deputy supervises and assists with recertifying all DRE’s within the region and sits on NYS Technical Advisory Panel for the DRE program.
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