EBENSBURG, Pa. — Blair County Sheriff Jim Ott is a big, strong man who's spent his whole life in law enforcement.
But he still can't talk about the death of his son, Josh, from a fentanyl overdose without feeling shaken.
“I thought I was a good father,” Ott said, tearing up. “They say time heals all wounds, but it doesn't.”
The central Pennsylvania sheriff said he wishes he could go back in time and stop the 33-year-old man from using drugs in the first place, but in his heart he knows there is only one solution.
“What we need to do is try to reduce it,” he told the Post.
But instead of taking meaningful steps to actually achieve that goal, “we've loosened our borders, we've opened our borders, we've made it easier for illegal immigrants to come in,” he fumed.
Lowering those standards, Ott said, “makes it easier for drug cartels to smuggle toxic substances across the border.”
That's why Ott blames Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and other Democrats for helping create an open border that allows hard-hitting drugs to flood across the border and killed 100,000 Americans last year alone.
Ott is the face of a heartbreaking new ad from Casey's Republican opponent in November's presidential election, Jim McCormick, which targets Casey's border policies and seeks to link him to the drug problem that has ravaged rural Pennsylvania.
He slammed Casey for failing to secure border security during his 18 years as a senator.
McCormick believes it will “take a tougher stance” at the border and provide the Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement Administration “the tools” to “go after the cartels” and stop the flow of fentanyl.
“That won't eliminate the addiction, but it will certainly make it harder for the toxins to escape,” Ott said.
In a lengthy interview with The Washington Post, Ott recounted his heartbreaking memory of hearing “the horrified screams of his family” upon discovering Josh dead in April 2020.
He tried hard to help his son overcome his addiction, telling him, “You're either going to jail, you're going to die, or both.”
Ott also revealed that he was furious that when he finally tracked down Josh's dealer, there wasn't enough evidence to arrest him.
“I told him he was lucky to be alive,” he recalled.
Ott believes Democrats have been slow to address the issue. Casey co-sponsored the Fentanyl Ban Act, which would have cracked down on “trafficking of fentanyl and its precursors by international criminal organizations, including the cartels.”
“When was that announced? April 2024. When did you know there was a problem? Why wait until now?” he said.
Ott said a soft policy on immigrant crime will be an important contrast Americans must choose this November.
“I think there was a direction under the Trump administration to have a more secure border,” he said, praising the former president's record of cracking down on illegal border crossings.
“Under the Biden administration, steps that were taken to move forward have been rolled back,” he said.
Ott said the only way to reduce the amount of deadly drugs coming into the U.S. is to have strict border controls and an administration that enforces the laws.
“I'm not saying Bob Casey killed my son,” Ott said.
“I'm saying that the toxicity that's coming across the border, the toxicity that's in our communities, the lack of safety of what's coming across the border is the responsibility of our current leadership, and he happens to be one of them.”
“No family should ever get a call like that,” he said, looking at a photo of his son.
“Their loved ones have died from overdoses of toxic substances that are coming into this country.”
