Brandon del Pozo: On the Front Lines of the Opioid Epidemic

Brandon is not your average cop. He’s Ivy League educated, holds two Masters degrees, and is finishing his PhD in philosophy. And as chief of police in Burlington, VT battling an opioid epidemic, he has some pretty powerful ideas to take this on, and the energy to make those ideas happen. The intersection of public health and policing is unexplored territory that holds great promise for communities large and small. And that’s exactly what Brandon del Pozo is exploring himself as chief of police in Burlington, Vt. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1996, he returned to his old New York City streets to serve and protect the community where he grew up. He helped to evacuate the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 11, 2001, after the first of the Twin Towers collapsed and did rescue and security work at Ground Zero in the months that followed. But he’s most passionate about solving the crisis of opioid addiction, which kills 60,000 people every year—the same number of combatants killed during the entirety of the Vietnam War. Brandon is an innovative thinker who balances his police work with scholarship. His dedicated leadership and community building work have led the city of Burlington to implement new ways of treating opioid addiction—methods and programs that have reduced the number of overdose deaths in the city by 50% in the past year. There’s a lot to learn in this episode, not just about Brandon, but about the science-backed and medically proven ways that police and public health officials can work together to improve and save lives in their communities.