Arrest in overdose case criticized as shaming by R.I. public health advocates – News – providencejournal.com

The case highlights, they say, the conundrum faced by drug users in crisis situations: Should they call 911 or not?

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — On April 17, the South Kingstown police announced via social media the arrest of a 28-year-old Narragansett woman on a charge that she failed to assist a fellow drug user and friend as he overdosed on the powerful, and often deadly, painkiller fentanyl.

The Facebook post featured a photo of Julia Martin from an arrest years earlier for driving under the influence and detailed police encountering the “victim” on the ground outdoors in a fetal position on Feb. 25 in an apparent opiate overdose.

The post, which was picked up by Rhode Island television stations and local news websites, went on to say that the investigation revealed that Martin “had been using fentanyl with the victim and failed to offer reasonable assistance, leaving the subject to suffer grave physical harm.” The police charged Martin, of 6B Middlebridge Rd.,  Narragansett, with misdemeanor failing to render assistance under the duty to assist law.

The post didn’t identify the man authorities treated with Narcan and took to South County Hospital with injuries related to the overdose. A police report, however, names him as Joshua W. Peck, a 27-year-old South Kingstown fisherman who called for Martin’s arrest after being hospitalized in critical condition with hypothermia, acute respiratory failure, pneumonia caused by aspiration, and septic shock.

The South Kingstown post raised the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island and a political action committee that advocates for policies that treat substance abuse as a public health, and not a criminal justice, concern. Together, they called on South Kingstown Police Chief Joseph Geaber Jr. and South Kingstown leaders to dismiss the charge against Martin. 

The case highlights, they say, the conundrum faced by drug users in crisis situations: Should they call 911 or not? While Kristen’s Law, enacted last year, calls for up to life in prison for drug dealers whose products cause a fatal overdose, the Good Samaritan Law grants immunity from prosecution to people who seek help for someone overdosing. 

“Decades of treating drug use as a criminal condition have pushed people with substance use disorder into the shadows,” the ACLU wrote, joined by the Substance Use, Policy, Education, and Recovery PAC. “Stigma, shame, and harsh criminal charges such as felony drug possession and drug-induced homicide (i.e.’Kristen’s Law’) reflect the chasm between our words (‘addiction is a disease’) and our lack of appropriate action to address it as such. Instead of implementing evidence-based public health interventions, we continue to propagate ‘tough on crime’ tactics that have failed for decades and don’t provide a safe place for people to get help.”

“The 911 Good Samaritan Law protections are an important first step to remind people that they can call for help in the event of an overdose and get some legal protections in doing so. But that law is limited in scope, and data show us that some people are still arrested for calling 911 in the event of an overdose.”

The organizations noted that in seven incidents in South Kingstown in 2018, a 911 caller was shielded from criminal prosecution by the state’s Good Samaritan Law. They noted, too, that data collected by the attorney general’s office showed that in the same year South Kingstown police charged three people after responding to a 911 overdose call.

“The account of even one such event spreads quickly in the community and makes people fearful of accessing emergency assistance. Given this and the legacy of criminalizing substance use disorders, it is not surprising that people may panic and flee the scene in an event of an overdose,” they wrote.

But South Kingstown officials counter that Martin’s case is anything but that, and that the three people charged in the 2018 cases faced allegations unrelated to the overdoses themselves.

“As the ACLU’s letter suggests, it may well be fear of legal repercussions or social stigmatization may deter some people from doing the right thing — even when doing the right thing is as simple as making a phone call that could save someone’s life. Such fears, however, cannot be used to excuse conduct that places defenseless people in the path of grave danger,” Police Chief Geaber wrote, adding: “In none of these cases was a Good Samaritan arrested for acting on their instinct to save a human life.”

The South Kingstown police and the community at large prides itself in approaching the disease of drug addiction with compassion, Town Manager Robert C. Zarnetske III said.

Police reports from the three incidents and Martin’s case are revealing. Officers encounter overdose victims swinging into fits of violence after receiving lifesaving doses of Narcan. Officers are battered by combative drug users, and vomited on, even in their eyes and mouth.

In Martin’s case, the police responded around 6:30 a.m. Feb. 25, to a report of a man lying in the driveway at 19 Oak St., according to the police report. They found Joshua Peck in a fetal position, moaning, and unresponsive.

An officer administered Narcan nasal spray. Within seconds, Peck began to move, his moans grew louder. Rescue arrived. Peck grew combative as medics gave him another dose of Narcan en route to South County Hospital. He swung from lethargy to violent outbursts.

He was admitted to the intensive care unit and attached to a ventilator and fentanyl drip after being diagnosed with pneumonia and sepsis, the police said. Days later, he was transferred to the Rhode Island Hospital Neurology Intensive Care.

Investigators began piecing together Peck’s movements the night before, learning that he had been dropped off at 8 p.m. at Oak Hill Tavern, where Martin was a waitress and a bartender. The two headed to Providence, where each told the police that the other purchased fentanyl.

Peck told investigators weeks later that Martin purchased the drug and they both snorted it in her car. Martin said that Peck alone did fentanyl after buying it and that she was a recovered heroin user with a high tolerance for the painkiller. She said she’s lost two people to fentanyl overdoses.

An examination of Peck’s phone revealed messages from Martin shortly after she returned Peck to Oak Street around midnight, according to the report.

12:44 a.m., Feb. 25: “Ur ok right? I tried to walk u in ur house..u refused to walk in..I had to leave to get home before but 1& and I’m hoping you went inside…u couldn’t even talk ….. Please text me when you wake up …txt me when you wake up … I’m nervous about you…No more of these lines for u. U don’t have a tolerance and that’s a damn good thing…Ur inside house right? Txt me back honey please..please….”

At 12:52 a.m.: “God damnit I’m about to drive back there…I wish u j walked in w ne. R u in bed…J say yes or no lol please …pretty please.”

Feb. 26, 6:26 p.m.: “Ur in ICU? Holy [expletive] I’m glad I didn’t do lines of that [expletive] …”

Peck later told officers that Martin supplied the drugs and that he was “left to die” face down in the dirt. He wanted to press charges, he said.

Martin told officers that Peck alone snorted fentanyl and that he was OK when she left him on the front step. The police said she eventually revealed that Peck had, in fact, been “nodding out.”

Superior Court Judge Melanie Thunberg approved a warrant for Martin’s arrest April 15. Two days later, she was arrested and charged with failing to render aid.

Brown and Recovery PAC maintain their stance that Martin’s arrest is “both questionable and counter-productive.”

“Further, the public shaming that has accompanied the social media posting by police of her photograph and personal information, all for allegedly committing a petty misdemeanor, can only perpetuate an already powerful cycle of guilt, shame, and recurrence of substance use, and reinforce a hesitancy on the part of individuals in these situations to seek help,” the organizations wrote.

Reports for the three other overdose cases that ended with charges show that in one the father who called 911 obstructed officers trying to assist his overdosing son by refusing to leave the house; berating his son for using “dope”; assaulting his son; and agitating the situation. He later admitted to the obstruction charge in court.

In another, a 23-year-old man who was overdosing was later held on a bench warrant for failing to appear in court in a domestic-violence case. Officers found him unresponsive in a basement room. They turned him on his side, and he began convulsing and vomiting, some of which landed in an officer’s eyes and mouth as he assisted rescue workers.

In the third case, a 26-year-old New Hampshire woman was charged with reckless driving, driving to endanger, and eluding the police after leading the police on a chase that started in Warwick and ended in South Kingstown on spike strips put in place by Narragansett police. According to police, the woman admitted shooting up fentanyl during the pursuit.

She told the investigators that her boyfriend died of a heroin overdose in Warwick the month before and that she was in Rhode Island visiting a friend to mourn. She smoked crack with her friend in the hours leading up to the chase, according to the report.

Attorney General Peter F. Neronha declined to comment on Martin’s case through a spokeswoman.

“Nevertheless, we believe that current law, when applied properly, provides the necessary protection from prosecution for people who are present when a person is overdosing and immediately call for medical assistance. The Good Samaritan law provides an adequate safe harbor for people who help overdose victims by calling 911, even if they possess or are using drugs themselves,” spokeswoman Kristy dos Reis wrote in an email.

“’Kristen’s Law’” has no application in a circumstance where a person is simply present during an overdose or possesses drugs. Rather, as a felony statute, ‘Kristen’s Law’ applies only when a person delivers a drug that results in another person’s death and should be charged only sparingly; for instance, in cases where the defendant is a significant drug trafficker,” she said. “It would not apply to someone who is sharing drugs with a friend or family member.”

— kmulvane@ providencejournal.co­m

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On Twitter: @kmulvane