26 Apr Police make arrest in fatal drug overdoses on West Side
Chicago police have arrested a man in connection with a batch of drugs laced with the potent painkiller fentanyl that was distributed on the West Side this week, resulting in at least 17 overdoses, four of them fatal.
The man was taken into custody Friday morning, but no charges have been announced. Detectives made the arrest after talking to a person of interest earlier in the week. That person has since been released.
Emergency crews began dealing with a rash of overdoses around 9:40 a.m. Tuesday, mostly in parts of East Garfield Park. Police said witnesses reported someone in a silver sedan distributing drugs around the corner of Homan and Chicago avenues Tuesday morning, near where many of the victims were found.
More of the drugs still could be in circulation, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi has warned. Police said they were sold in clear zip-close plastic bags and contained fentanyl, 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.
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A day after the overdoses, police picked up a known drug dealer who has an extensive criminal background going back to at least 1987. A law enforcement source said the man has links to the Traveling Vice Lords, the gang suspected of playing a role in distributing the tainted drugs.
He was taken into custody Wednesday morning after police raided his apartment building in the Humboldt Park community after he allegedly sold heroin to undercover officers, police records show. He was charged with six felony drug charges, including possession of a controlled substance to manufacturing with the intent to deliver heroin.
Police executing a search warrant found 40 pink-tinted bags containing heroin, one green-tinted bag with heroin and one black-tinted bag with crack cocaine. The confiscated drugs were worth an estimated street value of $1,529, according to a police report.
Officers also confiscated $299, which included $40 undercover officers paid him for heroin. He allegedly sold heroin to undercover officers on two other occasions, the report stated. Judge Arthur Wesley Willis released the man on his own recognizance Thursday. Court records show he had been complaining of “withdrawal symptoms.”
The Tribune is not naming him because he has not been charged in connection with the fentanyl-laced drugs.
The four deaths linked to the overdoses include a 34-year-old man found in a vehicle in the 4500 block of West Madison Street about 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, according to a police spokeswoman. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Two other men believed to have died from accidental overdoses have been identified by the Cook County medical examiner’s office as a 50-year-old man from the 600 block of North Homan Avenue and a 47-year-old man from the 5300 block of North East River Road on the Northwest Side.
A fourth man was found dead Tuesday night after apparently taking the deadly mixture, Guglielmi said. A friend of the deceased told police they bought drugs and took them before falling asleep. The call came from the 600 block of North Drake Avenue, in East Garfield Park, about 8:10 p.m., police said. The 49-year-old man was pronounced dead on the scene, the spokesman said.
Autopsies on the four were performed Wednesday but did not yield definitive results and were marked pending by the medical examiner’s office. The office said it’s awaiting toxicology tests that would confirm whether the deaths were drug-related. The results of toxicology tests typically take up to eight weeks, the office said.
Separately, the death of a 37-year-old Lemont woman last Friday was determined to have been from lack of oxygen to the brain from fentanyl intoxication. The woman was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital at 10:10 p.m. Friday after she had the apparent overdose near Madison Street and Western Avenue in Chicago.
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