LOS ANGELES (AP) — A teenage lady died of an obvious overdose at a Los Angeles highschool and police on Wednesday had been investigating a minimum of three different attainable overdoses of teenagers within the space the place officers warned that sellers are promoting counterfeit drugs laced with lethal fentanyl at a neighborhood park.
Officers had been referred to as to Bernstein Excessive Faculty in Hollywood Tuesday evening after a person stated his 15-year-old stepdaughter had overdosed on campus, Los Angeles police stated.
The lady and her 15-year-old buddy had not come dwelling from faculty within the afternoon and the person started driving round city searching for the pair. He discovered his stepdaughter round 8 p.m. in a courtyard at the highschool, stated police Lt. John Radke.
She had suffered an overdose however managed to inform her stepfather that her buddy was in a ladies’ restroom on campus, Radke stated.
The person and a college worker discovered the opposite lady unresponsive within the restroom on the faculty the place college students and oldsters had gathered for night athletic occasions. The person administered assist till paramedics arrived and pronounced her lifeless, police stated.
His stepdaughter was hospitalized in steady situation and was anticipated to recuperate, police and college district officers stated.
Earlier within the day, the Los Angeles Fireplace Division responded to separate calls reporting attainable overdoses of two teenagers within the space of Lexington Park, just a few blocks from Bernstein Excessive and a cluster of different faculties, in keeping with police.
“It’s believed that the overdose victims are college students of Bernstein and native excessive faculties,” a police assertion stated.
One of many victims was a 17-year-old pupil at close by Hollywood Excessive Faculty, stated Los Angeles Unified Faculty District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho.
Together with the most recent victims, there have been a complete of six circumstances of drug-related incidents together with overdoses stemming from illicit narcotics bought at Lexington Park in latest weeks, Carvalho stated.
“It’s a park well-known for permitting people to promote medicine to offer medicine to a few of our college students,” the superintendent informed reporters Wednesday.
Los Angeles Metropolis Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, who represents the realm, ordered the park closed on Wednesday, Carvalho stated.
Investigators imagine among the victims bought what they thought had been drugs of Percocet, a prescription painkiller, on the park in a residential space of East Hollywood close to the U.S. 101 freeway. Police had been investigating whether or not the drugs had been laced with fentanyl, which officers stated is a standard follow.
“We have to get the phrase out that these things is poison,” Radke stated. “It’s harmful and it’s going to kill extra folks out right here on the streets.”
Grief and disaster counselors had been available Wednesday at Bernstein Excessive, LA Unified stated in an announcement.
“As we work along with LAPD to uncover particulars of this tragic state of affairs, our ideas and prayers exit to the households and mates of each college students. We additionally thank everybody for his or her understanding and help immediately and we are going to share extra info because it turns into accessible,” the district assertion stated.
Legislation enforcement officers nationwide have for months warned concerning the risks of fentanyl, an artificial opioid 80 to 100 occasions extra highly effective than morphine. It’s continuously combined into illicit drugs made to seem like prescription painkillers or different medicines.
