NYC drug deaths -- bad batch? (merged)

moracca

moracca

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NYC drug deaths -- bad batch?

Bad heroin tied to 6 deaths

Police taking aim at downtown scourge

BY ALISON GENDAR, RICH SCHAPIRO and ROBERT F. MOORE
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

A deadly batch of heroin may have killed six people over five days in downtown Manhattan - including two college coeds found with fresh needle marks on their arms, police and health officials warned yesterday.

The tainted smack could be fatally pure or altered with a poisonous additive.

"We are taking steps to locate and isolate the source and arrest whoever might be behind it," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Alarmed by the number of deaths and the discovery that the fatalities were in such a narrow swath of Manhattan - below 14th St. - police urged expedited toxicology tests on the victims, including the 18-year-old students Maria Pesantez and Mellie Carballo.

"If I can save one life from the hands of these criminals who are doing this to young girls, my daughter did not die in vain," Mariel Carballo said just hours after burying her daughter.

Carballo raged at Roberto Martinez, 41, and Alfredo Morales, 33, the ex-cons who cops say were with her daughter and Pesantez when they overdosed Friday inside Morales' apartment at 484 E. Houston St.

Law enforcement sources revealed yesterday that Martinez was busted in the late 1990s for being a member of a notorious heroin gang the Cut Throat Crew, which earned $150,000 a week by selling drugs on the lower East Side.

"If these men were my daughter's and Maria's friends, why didn't they come to the funeral?" asked Mariel Carballo, 41, outside her West Side apartment.

"If they were my daughter's friends, I'd expect them to look me in my eyes like all of the rest of my daughter's friends."

Martinez was hit with a parole violation last night and was in police custody, according to sources, who said his urine had tested positive for drugs.

The first victim of the deadly heroin may have been Kristopher Korkowski, 24, a hairdresser from Minnesota. He was found dead Aug. 10 in an apartment at 223 Avenue B.

Two days later, Ivan Rivera, 24, overdosed in a hallway of 238 E. Seventh St. Carballo and Pesantez also overdosed that night. Carballo, a Hunter College freshman, died shortly after cops found her. Pesantez, a sophomore at New York University from Queens, died Sunday.

Cops grew concerned about a potential bad batch of heroin after the teens' deaths and the discovery Saturday of 37-year-old Charles Sicker, who overdosed in a portable toilet near W. 13th St.

"A detective called me Saturday to tell me there had been other overdoses," Korkowski's father, Pete, said from his home in Circle Pines, Minn.

But with roughly 900 drug-related deaths a year - almost twice the number of murders - police did not make the suspected connection public until Anatoli Silistovich, 42, was found dead Monday in a storage facility on Spring St.

Cops were questioning drug dealers, suspected addicts and confidential informants to track down the source of the drugs, and also were reviewing overdoses as far back as June.

Martinez and Morales have denied giving Carballo and Pesantez drugs. Martinez told cops he met Carballo, who dreamed of becoming a model or a psychologist, at the Dark Room, a club on Ludlow St.

Carballo's relatives said Martinez would sign his text messages to her with "K.C." - possibly a nod to his nickname Krazy Cat from his days with the Cut Throat Crew when he allegedly sold packets of heroin with brand names like Overtime, Raw Dog and Good News.

Residents on the lower East Side said a potent brand of heroin called Eden is popular in the area, primarily on Avenue D between E. Fourth and E. Fifth Sts. It costs about $15 a bag.

"People don't understand how dangerous heroin is," said Patti Kelly, 50, of the East Village. "This area is a playground for kids to do what they want to do. There are no boundaries."



I was reading an article in the newspaper about two girls who died after taking coke and possibly heroin... Big deal, right? The article also said that four other's were found dead within the same week in the same immediate area, which lead some to believe it may have been a bad batch of drugs. A lab in the bronx was just busted also, and they are trying to figure out if the batch came from there, and if they can determine if something went wrong. Anyone know anything about this case?

edit: heres a link to an article online talking about it:
Here

//Moracca

edit: article added - Skyline
 
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Hmm interesting article. One thing I find hard to believe is that twice as many people die drug related deaths than are murdered? What exactly does "drug related" entail?
 
coincidentally, here is a link to an article discussing the bronx lab bust: here

47 Kilos of H, and $250,000 in cash. Sucks for the junkies in that area! I wish i had the article i was reading earlier -- i think it said the lab was grossing around $6 mill/week 8o


edit: found it!
news08172005011a.jpg
August 17, 2005 -- The NYPD and federal narcotics agents yesterday busted a heroin-processing plant — equipped with trapdoors and secret passageways for quick getaways — that turned out $6 million worth of drugs a week, officials said.

NYPD cops and feds stormed the "heroin mill" hidden in a converted duplex in the Williamsbridge section of The Bronx, said DEA special agent John Gilbride.

Thirteen workers were arrested and agents seized 50 kilos of heroin, most of it packed into 150,000 glassine envelopes, ready for distribution to street dealers. The street value of the packaged drugs — which sold for $10 to $14 an envelope — was $2.1 million.

"This is a significant amount of heroin to find in a retail-level distribution," said Gilbride. "This was a significant operation that was pumping this poison into the metropolitan area."

Agents discovered the plant — where black-tar heroin was turned into powder form, then cut and repackaged — in the basement of a two-story building at 3166 Fenton Ave.

The dealers had built secret passageways, accessed through trapdoors in closets, connecting the basement and the four apartments they controlled, so they never had to show their faces in public hallways.

Agents stormed the mill and nabbed workers as they scrambled into the hidden passageways from their dusty and cramped production line.

One woman was found hiding in a clothes dryer.

Seven handguns were also found.

The suspects were arraigned in Manhattan federal court yesterday and charged with narcotics trafficking and firearms offenses. Each faces 15 years to life. All were held without bail pending hearings.

In addition to the dope and guns, authorities seized $250,000 in cash, 150 coffee grinders used on the production line, two money-counting machines, 21 cases of empty glassine envelopes and dozens of rubber stamps used to "brand" the smack.

"We have made a major dent . . . a crippling blow to heroin trade in the area," said Anthony Izzo, assistant chief officer of the NYPD Narcotics Unit.

Agents are still investigating and testing the dope to see if it is cut with any dangerous additives. They're trying to determine if it was responsible for the so-called "bad batch" that has been killing users in the city.
Click to expand...
 
Cops Warn of "Bad Heroin" in City
Aug 17, 2005 7:16 am US/Eastern

(1010 WINS) (NEW YORK) The same batch of heroin may be responsible for at least six deaths over the past six days in lower Manhattan, city officials warned on Tuesday.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said detectives are questioning suspected addicts, dealers and confidential drug informants about the possible source of the drugs, which may have killed 18-year-old college students Mellie Carballo and Maria Pesantez last week. The teenagers were found unconscious in a 33-year-old man's Lower East Side apartment.

Health officials are warning treatment centers, hospitals and methadone clinics to alert their clients to the potentially fatal supply, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Thomas Frieden said.

The first victim of the heroin, which could be dangerously adulterated or fatally pure, may have been Kristopher Korkowski, 24, found dead Aug. 10 in an apartment on Avenue B in the East Village.

Two days later, another 24-year-old man was found dead in an East Village apartment. Carballo and Pesantez were discovered that evening. Carballo died within the hour; Pesantez died on Sunday.

On Saturday, a 37-year-old man was found dead in a portable toilet on Pier 54, by West 14th Street.

But with roughly 900 drug-related deaths a year, Kelly said, city officials did not decide to alert the public until Monday night, when a 42-year-old man was found in a Spring Street apartment and rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Link
 
Here are some statistics over drug fatalities compared to homicides in the US: Drug War Facts: Annual Causes of Death in the United States

Deaths contributed to "All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect" were 17,000 and this includes:

... suicide, homicide, motor-vehicle injury, HIV infection, pneumonia, violence, mental illness, and hepatitis.
Click to expand...

Which in no way is a true image of the dangers of drugs since almost all these causes are an effect of prohibiton.

The number of homicides are 20,308 which is no way near half the number of "drug related deaths".
 
Heroin kills 4!!!!

Mix of Heroin and Cocaine Likely in 4 Deaths, Police Say

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/crime/nyc-junk0819,0,5567088.story?coll=nyc-homepage-breaking2

By MICHAEL WILSON
Published: August 18, 2005

At least four of the six victims of possible drug overdoses in Lower Manhattan appear to have used a combination of heroin and cocaine, the police said yesterday.

It remained unclear whether the drugs were tainted with a lethal ingredient, or if the potency was high enough to be deadly.

On Tuesday, the police and health department officials announced that at least six people had died, possibly from drug overdoses, in Lower Manhattan in a five-day period, and that tainted drugs might have been involved. There were no new cases added to the list yesterday.

The medical examiner's office is expected to release the results of toxicology tests on blood from the six victims as soon as tomorrow, the police said.

The six victims were two 18-year-old college students who were found unconscious on Friday in an apartment on East Houston Street, a 24-year old hairdresser in the East Village, and three men who appeared to be homeless.

Evidence suggested that the two students, a man found dead in a portable toilet near Pier 54 on the West Side, and a man found dead at a storage center in SoHo, had all taken a combination of heroin and cocaine that is commonly called a speedball, the police said. The mixture can be injected, smoked or swallowed.

The evidence included drug residue, paraphernalia and urine taken from one of the students, who was at Cabrini Medical Center overnight before dying on Saturday.

The man found in the toilet appeared to have used a syringe to take the drugs and had a medical history that included one prior overdose, the police said.

The two students did not have any needle marks from drug use, the police said.

The police said they had not found any overdoses related to the six deaths in the area.

Arrest made in heroin deaths case

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/crime/nyc-junk0819,0,5567088.story?coll=nyc-homepage-breaking2

BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA
STAFF WRITER

August 19, 2005


The Lower East Side man who allegedly supplied the drugs to the two college students who later died has been arrested, an attempt to squeeze him for information about where the drugs came from, police sources said Thursday.

Alfredo Morales, 33, was arrested Wednesday night and charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance for allegedly giving the students cocaine. The students also took heroin, sources said.

Morales and Roberto Martinez, 41, partied last Friday inside Morales' East Houston Street apartment with Mellie Carballo and Maria Pesantez, 18-year-old college students.

The women later fell unconscious and died, two of six drug users in a small area of lower Manhattan to die from apparent overdoses since last week.

The city on Tuesday issued a citywide alert, warning the public that a super potent or tainted batch of heroin might be responsible for the deaths.

Since then, five other people have died of overdoses -- in every borough except Queens -- and police are trying to determine if they are connected to the six that prompted the alert.

Complicating the probe, however, is that investigators have learned that at least four of the six victims in the cluster the prompted the alert -- including the students -- also took cocaine.

The arrest of Morales, sources said, is an attempt to squeeze him for more information, as police try to figure out the source of the cocaine and heroin.

Detectives are also trying to milk Martinez for the same information. Martinez, a convicted drug dealer, was hit with a parole violation Wednesday after failing a urine test and was thrown back in jail.

I do heroin so i'm not saying heroin is evil just posting story .
 
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How do you OD with something like that, I thought one of the advantages to IV'ing was that you could instantly feel the amount you are putting in, and slowly add more instead of guess work like pill purity. Or are these types of things people who think they know how much they should have, and just empty the whole syringe at one time?
 
ast3r3x said:
How do you OD with something like that, I thought one of the advantages to IV'ing was that you could instantly feel the amount you are putting in, and slowly add more instead of guess work like pill purity. Or are these types of things people who think they know how much they should have, and just empty the whole syringe at one time?
Click to expand...

one cannot "instantaneously" or "magically" feel the amount IV'd. most ODs are IV related. it's very hard (can be done but lenghty) to accurately judge the purity of your dope.
 
Dopes on Dope - A bad batch of reporting on NYC's heroin-related deaths

Dopes on Dope
A bad batch of reporting on NYC's heroin-related deaths.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005, at 3:20 PM PT

http://slate.msn.com/id/2124501/

Nearly every identity group employs a watchdog to defend its interests when the press stoops to filling news stories about its members with misinformation and stupidity. Gays have the HRC, Jews have the ADL, gun owners the NRA, and laboratory animals PETA. Alas, no group speaks on the behalf of America's dopers when journalists shovel manure and half-truths into print, so until such a group forms, I'll have to serve as their proxy.

In the last week, six people in Lower Manhattan have died in what appear to be heroin-related incidents. The New York dailies have swarmed the story—especially the deaths of Maria Pesantez and Mellie Carballo, two 18-year-old coeds.

Based on their sources in the police department, the medical examiner's office, and elsewhere, the dailies are speculating about a "bad batch of heroin" (Daily News), "a batch of tainted heroin" (New York Sun), "the same bad batch of heroin" that killed the other four users (Associated Press), "a poison or … [drugs] so pure and strong as to be lethal" (New York Times), "a $20 bag of bad cocaine and possibly heroin" (New York Post), and "uncut heroin or cocaine" (Newsday) rampaging through the town.


It could be that bad, tainted, poisoned, pure, or uncut heroin or cocaine killed Pesantez and Carballo, as well as the other four (Christopher Korkowski, Ivan Rivera, Anatoli Filistovic, and Charles Sicker). But I doubt it. A more plausible explanation for Pesantez and Carballo's deaths—multiple drug use—is as close as a search of the PubMed database of science journals.

To begin with, it's possible to inject a life-stopping quantity of heroin. Yet a 1996 review of the scientific literature published in Addiction states that, "In a substantial proportion of cases, blood morphine levels alone"—the body converts heroin into morphine—"cannot account for the fatal outcome of a heroin 'overdose.' " Authors Shane Darke and Deborah Zador continue:

It appears that a great many "overdoses" are in fact fatalities due to multiple drug use. Furthermore, many cases of apparent heroin overdose have either blood levels at the low end of the range, or at levels no higher than for survivors of "overdose" or heroin dependent users who die of other causes.

Likewise, toxic contaminants added to heroin can play a role in heroin-related death. But how often? The Addiction paper calls the role of heroin impurities "relatively minor, and possibly subject to regional variation."

Studies of heroin-related death support the multiple-drug-use theory. Morphine usually has company when autopsies test for drugs. In only a minority of such cases is morphine the only drug detected. And, depending on the study, alcohol was one of the other drugs detected in 29 percent to 79 percent of autopsies. In cases testing positive for alcohol, the blood-morphine levels were "significantly lower" than the morphine-only cases, according to a 1996 study. Benzodiazepines, the drug family to which Valium belongs, are "frequently noted at autopsy," states Addiction. Benzodiazepines are central-nervous-system depressants, like heroin and alcohol, and it's well known that mixing these drugs can lead to coma or death.

The authors conclude:

In many, perhaps the majority, of cases, it may be that heroin is no more than a contributory cause of death. … For a substantial number of heroin-related fatalities, then, heroin "overdose" may be a misnomer. To attribute the cause of these deaths to "heroin overdose" ignores the likely causal contribution of other drugs to the mechanism of death.

If the New York papers can be believed—and I'm not sure they can—we have reason to believe that Maria Pesantez and Mellie Carballo died not from heroin alone but from multiple drug use. The Aug. 16 Times reports that the two men who were with the girls when they collapsed told detectives they had been "using drugs and drinking." The Post cites unnamed sources who say "the girls went to a Lower East Side bar shortly after breakfast to begin a drinking binge" and that "cocaine, alcohol and opiates" were found in Pasantez's urine. Newsday reports allegations that the women had been drinking. "Sources" told the Daily News that the women had used cocaine and "had fresh needle marks on their arms." If this amalgam of assertions turns out to be true, then the easiest explanation for the tragic deaths would be the mixing of drugs, not the consumption of tainted or super-pure heroin.

The Sun entertained the contamination thesis, quoting Robert McCrie of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on the topic. McCrie told the paper that diluents like quinine, sugar, talcum powder, milk sugar, or a new cutting agent or combination of cutting agents might have helped kill the users. Even though contaminants don't figure highly in contemporary heroin-related death literature, McCrie gets a large brownie point for telling the Sun that alcohol or other sedatives might have played a role. (Permission granted to the Sun to share the brownie point.)

Autopsy reports, which are due in a week to 10 days, should settle the debate. Still, how can the press (exclusive of the Sun), the police, and the medical authorities be so clueless about heroin-related death that none of them availed themselves of the facts of the case and the scientific evidence to hypothesize that a cocktail of drugs might have killed Pesantez and Carballo? Why isn't anybody alerting heroin users to the dangers of multiple drug use instead of warning about the chimeras of poison and super-dope?

Willful ignorance is probably the best explanation, especially for the press and the cops. But New York City's public health officers, who should know better, may refrain from warning users about multiple drug use because it comes a tad too close to advocating harm reduction. To their ears, saying, "If you insist on using heroin, use it as safely as you can," sounds too much like advocating a citywide BYO-smack party. Even if it saves a couple of lives.
 
The dealers had built secret passageways, accessed through trapdoors in closets, connecting the basement and the four apartments they controlled, so they never had to show their faces in public hallways.
Click to expand...

LOL I wish they had pictures :(
 
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