By Hank Russell
Two people have been arrested in connection with three overdose deaths in Coram and one nonfatal overdose. The arrests were announced during a July 12 press conference. The names of the accused were not disclosed, nor were the charges.
During the press conference, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina — flanked by SCPD detectives and local elected officials — said the department utilized detectives who specialize in overdose investigations as well as detectives from the Narcotics and Criminal Intelligence divisions to garner information on these overdoses. Following an investigation, two search warrants were executed for separate locations in Coram. Officers searched and uncovered a gun, 20 grams of powdered fentanyl, other drug paraphernalia and cell phones. This resulted in two arrests.
On July 11, police responded to four separate reports of overdoses. At 2 p.m. that day, they found a 39-year-old man inside a tent on a yard on Judith Drive who died of an apparent overdose. Officers showed up at Fife Drive at 7:12 p.m. where they found a woman in the backyard of a residence who was the victim of a suspected overdose. She was rushed to teh hospital in critical condition.
Later that night, police found a 24-year-old man nearby dead of a suspected overdose. Three minutes later, officers responded to another overdose death behind a business on Middle Country Road. The victim was a 58-year-old man.
“One of the further complicating factors is that … the people who ingested these drugs were not opioid users; they were crack cocaine users,” Catalina said. “Probably, their tolerances were not [the same as] somebody who had an opioid addiction … so it makes it even more dangerous.”
As previously reported in Long Island Life & Politics, the SCPD issued a warning to county residents of a bad batch of narcotics that led to the deaths of three people and seriously injured one in Coram on July 11. The SCPD urged people to use caution due to this potentially deadly substance in the drugs.
Since the warning went out, Catalina said, there have been no reported overdoses of fatalities. He thanked County Executive Ed Romaine, local elected officials, Health Commissioner Dr. Gregson H. Pigott and the Long Island Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence for helping to get the message out. “Quite frankly, getting the message out the way we did saved additional lives,” Catalina said. “I can’t thank our partners enough for that.”
However, he urged the communities to remain vigilant. “There is a possibility that there is some of that dangerous substance out there.”