Iowa AG Bird visits county, speaks to students

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, Ringgold County Attorney Mike Wells, and County Sheriff Rob Haley spoke to Diagonal middle and high school students on Friday, February 21 on a variety of topics related to the dangers of drugs, vaping, texting while driving, and social media.

Bird opened the presentation by encouraging students to consider in a career in law and law enforcement.
“I found that in school, I really liked history and learning how things worked,” she said. “and I learned about the Constitution, and that is something that I get to do as attorney general, is uphold our Constitution, protect our rights. Sometimes that means holding the federal government accountable. Sometimes that means making sure people’s rights are respected.”
Bird offered an open invitation to any students interested in law.

“You are very welcome,” she said. “Just let me know, come to my office and see what we do, and meet people with different kinds of law, go to court with us.”

She also stressed how those in law enforcement are often called upon to save people’s lives.

“You look at law enforcement, they save people’s lives all the time,” she said. “They don’t believe it will happen, but they’re trained to do it. EMTs, firefighters, there’s all kinds of people that it’s part of their job to save people’s lives.”

Bird then pivoted to the purpose of her address to the students.

“Would you save somebody’s life and get a chance?” she asked. “We all want it, and we just don’t know when it can happen, and that’s part of the reason that I’m here today … because the information that I’m going to give you is something that can save your life, but it can also save the lives of your friends and others that you know.”
Bird spoke about the dangers of vaping, drug abuse, and texting while driving and challenged the students to be good role models for younger kids.

“They’re going to watch you and watch what you do and the decisions you make and the way you do things, that’s going to affect what they do, too,” she said. “And you can save lives just by being a good role model for those younger kids around you that look up to you.”

Bird stressed that vaping and exposure to fentanyl were two main areas of concern to young people.
She explained that while vaping may look harmless, not only is it illegal for people under 21, but it can cause irreparable lung damage, even in healthy young people.

“It really can affect your lung capacity,” she said. “It can take somebody who’s a good athlete and bring them down a couple of levels, and a great athlete bring them down as well, because that lung capacity is pretty important. You have to be able to run, right, and have that lung capacity to play sports, to get that blood to the muscles.”

Bird focused especially on the dangers of encountering even the smallest doses of fentanyl disguised as medicine or candy.
She pointed to a video screen.

“You see that white stuff on the tip of the pencil?” she asked. “You see what that looks like. That’s how much fentanyl it takes to kill somebody.”

Fentanyl, she said, was the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 45.
Adding to Bird’s point, Sheriff Rob Haley displayed a carton of Narcan, a nasal spray that counteracts drug overdoses. He explained that he and his deputies have Narcan cartridges on them or in their patrol vehicles at all times. Haley urged the students not to use extreme caution should they encounter drugs.

“If you see something, say something – that would be whether it’s vape, drugs, you see it, say something,” he said. “You guys see something that’s white, jelly, brown, something. What are you going to do? You see it like, say, in a bathroom, just a little bit of it. What are you going to do? Right? We’re going to go pick it up, right? Do not touch it. I repeat, do not touch it. Go find a teacher. Go find an adult, okay, you see it anywhere in the school, even at home, okay, anywhere this day and age, you don’t know what it is.”

Bird then pivoted to another way students could save lives – by refusing to text while driving or, as a passenger, asking the driver not to text while driving.

“We had 684, distracted driving crashes last year, and that’s just the ones that we know about,” she said. “Every single one of those could have been prevented.”

County attorney Mike Wells then addressed the dangers of predators using social media to extort money from unsuspecting young people. He told the story of an area high school girl who became friends with a stranger on Facebook. One thing led to another, he said, and soon they had exchanged intimate pictures of each other.

“The next step the guy does is he threatens her, ‘if you don’t send me money, I’m going to share this picture with everybody on Facebook, your parents, your friends, everybody,’” Wells explained. “Guess what she does? She sends him money. It is a scam. It is a trap.”

Wells said the extortion continued despite the payment.

“He didn’t destroy the picture,” he said. “She sent him $100 and the picture was still out there. Guess what he did a week later? I want more money. Guess what she did? Send more money, and it continued until she ran out of money. And then guess what they do? The little girl’s under a ton of pressure. She doesn’t want her dad to get those pictures sent to him, or mom or grandparents, so they try to commit suicide.”

Wells also warned the students about receiving intimate underage photos on their phones or worse, sharing them with others.

“Those are real crimes that you guys are faced with, and it’s easy to get into that trap and make a mistake,” he said. “If those kinds of things happen to you, you do not forward it. You go see law enforcement. Okay? I don’t care if it’s your best friend for 20 years, you gotta report it, because you’re going to be guilty of a crime and it’s going to be there forever.”

Bird, Wells, and Haley concluded the afternoon’s presentation by taking several questions from the student audience.