Police seek public’s help to stop heroin surge

Associated Press

WILMINGTON, Ohio

Police in a southwest Ohio community have turned to the public for help to catch the sellers of heroin that’s blamed for 12 overdoses – two of them fatal – in less than a week in a city of about 12,500 people.

Investigators are waiting for toxicology results to come in, but they expect that the fatal overdoses of a man and woman involve heroin, Wilmington Detective Scott Baker told the Wilmington News Journal. Evidence of heroin was recovered at the scene of all of the overdoses, according to police, and Chief Detective Josh Riley said there appears to be something in heroin used in the city that is causing the overdoses.

“Whether we have a high mixture of heroin and fentanyl, whether we have heroin that’s cut [mixed] with something else that’s really affecting these folks, there’s something with the heroin that they’re using right now that is causing massive overdoses in the city,” Riley said.

Fentanyl is a painkiller that’s similar to, but more potent than morphine, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Investigators have asked residents to call a tip line to report suspicious activity to give police a direction of where to look for the drugs. Baker and Riley said investigators are also looking for informants willing to testify in court.

Baker said people don’t always know what they’re buying and are still trying home remedies before calling 911.