By Adam Goebel with Stefanie Baum
Long Island drug enforcement efforts took a dramatic shift this week with the debut of a “drug mapping index” on both the Nassau County Police Department’s website and Suffolk County government’s homepage.
The websites are the result of laws passed last December, inspired by the Long Island Press’ heroin coverage, that required mapping out heroin-related arrests on LI. Commonly known as Natalie’s Law, the legislation was named after high school student Natalie Ciappa, who died of a heroin overdose last summer, in the hope of preventing deaths of other young people who are turning to the deadly drug in greater numbers. The goal is to inform concerned citizens of where the heroin hotspots are and to make sure parents are aware if there is a problem near their child’s school, because some administrators refused to acknowledge that heroin is a problem in their district.
“We’ll see what develops in the future and how effective this website is,” says Nassau Legis. David Mejias (D-Farmingdale), who wrote Natalie’s Law. “We’ve got to give it a little time to run and see how it’s going and then make a decision from there,” he adds, regarding whether or not to include additional types of drug arrests.
Ciappa was an 18-year-old Plainedge High School student, singer and cheerleader from Massapequa who graduated with honors and a scholarship to SUNY Old Westbury, but overdosed at a Seaford party last June. Lawmakers refused to let her death be in vain and now use her story to warn parents that the deadly opiate has made a comeback. The websites debuted in time for what would have been Natalie’s 19th birthday on March 16.
The websites, which are to be updated monthly, pinpoint on a map of LI the neighborhoods where heroin arrests have occurred. Suffolk County has about 10 listed on its map for the month of March, while Nassau has nearly 100, representing arrests from Jan. 14 through Feb. 15. The websites include much of the arrest information, including the date, location, charge and suspect’s age. But the presentation varies on each site. Nassau lists information on a separate page from the map. Suffolk’s map is interactive, although difficult to navigate (Users must zoom in, click “map identify” and then click on the needle icons).
“To have a skeleton of a website is not what I envisioned,” says Suffolk Legis. Wayne Horsely (D-Lindenhurst). “I expected some meat.”
Dan Aug, spokesman for Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, says that the website’s users need to have patience. “It’s a work in progress,” Aug says.
Regardless, the law is just the beginning. “The law is a great victory but the other side of it is that the school districts still aren’t as involved as they should be,” says Victor Ciappa, Natalie’s father, who has since become an anti-heroin advocate along with his wife, Doreen. “There’s still a cross-section of people who don’t believe that this stuff is here.”