'I see my brother in every death that I've attended': addictions crisis is personal for North Bay detective
CBC
Detective Brad Reaume doesn’t police the addiction crisis from a distance.
He keeps a running list on his phone of people in North Bay struggling with drug addiction — people he checks in on, worries about and, in some cases, has arrested more than once.
When he knocks on a family’s door to deliver news of an overdose death, he doesn’t rely only on his police training.
He tells them about his brother.
Reaume leads the street crime investigations team with North Bay Police.
But long before he wore a badge, addiction was already shaping his life.
His older brother, Perry Reaume, struggled with substance use for a majority of his life.
The two boys grew up in the 1970s in Temagami and were raised by a single father.
At eight years old, Brad remembers catching his brother behind their house sniffing gasoline from a four-wheeler.
“That's when I realize things are out of hand,” he said.
Throughout his life, Perry cycled through jail sentences and drug treatment programs. When their father was laid off, he spent his entire mining pension trying to get Perry help.
Brad said his dad watched his brother go through 14 drug induced comas at his house.
“I said, ‘Why is it that you can't stop?’ And he said, ‘I have no idea. Why is it that other people could experiment with drugs and not end up like me?’” Brad recalled asking his brother as a teenager.
In 2003, Brad moved away from home and became a police officer in Windsor, Ont.
Detective Brad Reaume doesn’t police the addiction crisis from a distance.
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