Editor’s word: Blair County has seen greater than 130 drug overdose deaths within the final 2.5 years, up considerably since six overdose deaths had been reported in 1999. The next is the primary in a collection of articles wanting into the drug disaster in Blair County.
For greater than 40 years, Blair County legislation enforcement has been confronting drug abuse and the recurrent crimes related to it, however inside the previous couple of years, the drug conflict has turned extra lethal than ever.
Blair County Coroner Patty Ross reported greater than 130 overdose deaths have been investigated by her workplace in 2020, 2021 and through the first few months of 2022.
The lethal abuse of medication has not abated over time, she mentioned.
“Issues are horrible, actually,” Ross mentioned, noting she’s seen much more drug overdoses than in earlier years.
Blair County’s drug downside shouldn’t be restricted to the world’s youth inhabitants. In line with statistics offered by Blair County Coroner Patty Ross, the majority of the overdose deaths in 2021 had been individuals of their 30s, 40s and 50s; the oldest overdose sufferer was 83, whereas the following oldest was 73.
Mirror photograph by Patrick Waksmunski
Throughout a current workday, her workplace was extraordinarily busy, and Ross had a heavy burden to bear — informing a mom that her son had died of a heroin overdose.
“I’m so sorry,” she mentioned through the cellphone dialog.
Over a brief time frame, Ross was visited by a continuing circulation of law enforcement officials and her deputies, and he or she expressed concern concerning the many alternative points she sees within the coroner’s workplace.
As an illustration, her workplace has investigated a collection of deadly fires. She believes at the least a few of the victims of these fires would nonetheless be alive if they might have maintained their smoke detectors.
The coroner pressured the necessity for a morgue in order that households can correctly view and determine their deceased family. She additionally talked about how she strives to take care of the dignity of victims in loss of life, together with those that overdose on medication, however whose households are unknown or can’t be discovered.
Altoona Mirror, Sept. 19, 1984
On the drug entrance, she stays very involved — nearly shocked — by the current uptick in drug deaths by fentanyl and methamphetamine, alone and combined with different medication, together with heroin and oxycodone.
In certainly one of her inquest experiences, she listed fentanyl, heroin and THC — the lively ingredient that impacts the psychological state of a marijuana person — as the reason for loss of life.
She reported three deaths this yr attributed to para-fluorofentanyl, a drug so highly effective that the individual taking it dies whereas nonetheless standing.
“Some medication are horrible deaths,” she mentioned.
One other spinoff of fentanyl seen in Blair County is carfentanil, which poses a hazard to first responders.
They will really feel the deadly results of the drug by touching it. It’s no marvel, as carfentanil is used as a tranquilizer for elephants and different giant mammals and is 10,000 occasions stronger than morphine and 100 occasions stronger than fentanyl.
It’s usually combined in with different medication equivalent to heroin, cocaine or crystal meth — and sometimes drug customers do not know their medication have been tainted.
Overdoses, deaths on the rise
The coroner’s workplace reported 57 drug deaths in 2021, 56 such deaths in 2020 and greater than 30 deaths by August of this yr.
Ross, a registered nurse, has been related to the coroner’s workplace for 30 years and has been the elected coroner since 1998.
To place the numbers in perspective, Ross scanned her laptop for the yr 1999.
She started to depend and reported that in 1999 there have been six drug overdose deaths in Blair County.
That may be a far cry from the 2021 complete of 57, and it doesn’t embody the overdose circumstances handled by hospital emergency personnel.
In a report issued that yr by Operation Our City, Altoona Police Chief Joseph Merrill said his officers responded to 250 overdoses.
The overdose depend might be a lot increased, now that naloxone, a drug used to reverse the results of an overdose, is available at pharmacies.
Inquest experiences filed yearly with the Blair County Courthouse present that of the 57 drug deaths final yr, 45 had been males.
Many individuals consider that it’s the younger who are suffering probably the most extreme penalties of the drug tradition, however Ross’ 2021 inquests belie that assumption.
The majority of the overdose deaths in 2021 had been individuals of their 30s, 40s and 50s; the oldest overdose sufferer was 83, whereas the following oldest was 73, in response to statistics.
One other statistic testifying to the drug disaster domestically is proven within the variety of drug supply deaths, or these deaths by which police consider they will decide who provided the deadly overdose to the sufferer.
Courthouse data present at the least 5 lively investigations underway this yr.
Ross works carefully with police and Blair County District Legal professional Pete Weeks, offering them with experiences of her investigations.
UPMC reported in July that there have been almost 108,000 drug overdose deaths investigated nationwide in 2021.
“In 2021, the vast majority of drug buys in Blair County had been both for methamphetamine or heroin, a lot of it laced with fentanyl, inflicting extra deaths than we will think about. This can be a conflict, not a battle, and we try to handle it one of the best we will with our three foremost focuses on legislation enforcement, prevention and remedy,” Michael A. Fiore, co-founder/president, Operation Our City, mentioned in his Letter from the President revealed within the group’s 2022 report.
Medication and violence
Drug crimes and violence appear to go hand-in-hand. No less than that has been the expertise in Blair County.
The story of that violence dates again 41 years to Sept. 9, 1981.
A Blair County grand jury was empaneled to research the brutal murders of two metropolis residents, John Henry Clark and Dennis Hileman.
Clark was a small-time drug supplier.
His physique was present in a burning automotive alongside a rural Cambria County highway not removed from the Blair County line. He died when struck on the top with an ax.
Hileman’s physique was discovered within the Tipton Reservoir.
Each allegedly roused the ire of the leaders of an Altoona-based crime household led by businessmen John Verilla, John Caramadre and Vincent Caracciolo.
Clark threatened to reveal the household’s drug exercise, whereas Hileman was marked for loss of life as a mob informant.
A particular unit of state police troopers, led by Ed Pottmeyer, did the investigative work for the grand jury, which was led by Philadelphia County Assistant District Legal professional L. George Parry, who stays in observe within the Metropolis of Brotherly Love, and Particular Assistant Legal professional Normal D. Brooks Smith, who finally turned a Blair County district lawyer and choose and who just lately went into semi-retirement because the chief choose of the U.S. third Circuit Courtroom of Appeals.
Pottmeyer, charismatic with a wry humorousness and a trooper who didn’t abide inference together with his investigation both by his state police superiors or the FBI, mentioned in a current interview that his group discovered a lot crime within the space “it was overwhelming who to go after.”
He mentioned cocaine was coming into the Altoona space from Cuba and South Florida and never from the mob.
His group additionally concluded the native “household” was concerned in all forms of crime, together with arsons, mortgage sharking and homicide.
Nonetheless, the investigators hit pay filth when Pottmeyer interviewed a former Altoona-area osteopath, John Maras, who was doing jail time for writing false prescriptions.
Pottmeyer mentioned Maras began out writing false prescriptions for quaaludes, a sort of sedative that turned a preferred drug on the streets.
Folks could be despatched to Maras, who would prescribe the drugs. That individual could be paid $25, and the drugs could be given to avenue sellers.
Maras, in courtroom testimony, claimed he was making hundreds of {dollars} every week on quaaludes and different medication.
The cash the leaders of the crime household, who met with Maras and finally accepted him as an affiliate.
Maras “turned a finger of the mob,” Pottmeyer mentioned.
He mentioned the crime household finally — in an effort to get drug brokers off Maras’ again — concocted a pretend theft.
Maras reported to police that two “husky” males entered his Altoona workplace, tied up him alongside together with his spouse, beat him and took his medication and his data.
Pottemeyer defined that the husky males had been members of Vince Caracciolo’s crew — Caracciolo was the mob enforcer — and Maras requested that one of many crew punch him to make the theft look actual.
That punch knocked Maras to the ground, broke his glasses and left a particular mark, Pottmeyer mentioned.
Pottmeyer reported the crime household made $60,000 promoting Maras’ drug stash.
It was the drug enterprise that turned the important thing to the grand jury’s success in breaking apart the crime household as a result of it led to convictions and imprisonment of the leaders for the brutal loss of life of John Henry Clark.
The grand jury group, after 4 years of labor, was finally discontinued, however Pottmeyer, 82 and retired, maintains there was nonetheless loads of work remaining for that particular unit to do.
Pottmeyer is writing a guide about his experiences.
‘They arrive to earn cash’
Whereas the Blair County grand jury proved successful in eliminating the quaalude downside, police from the native to the federal stage within the subsequent few many years would expertise an onslaught of medication that included cocaine, crack cocaine, heroin, fentanyl tub salts and a number of different substances that try to quench the craving of people who find themselves looking for the final word excessive.
Drug corporations tried to persuade the general public that opioids may get rid of their ache, and when drugs weren’t obtainable, customers would flip to heroin or cocaine — and extra just lately to much more harmful fentanyl-laced merchandise.
The door was open as soon as once more for the legal aspect to thrive, and lots of gangs, attended by their violence, took benefit of the chance.
They got here from Buffalo, Brooklyn, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Camden, East Orange and Detroit.
Anthony Sassano, a former Altoona police officer who went on to a profession with the lawyer normal’s workplace, defined the attraction.
Sassano, who was the chief of the AG’s Bureau of Narcotics Investigation and Drug Management, views the issue as statewide.
Drug gangs come to communities from main metropolitan areas for the cash.
“It’s the identical all over the place. The principle motive is cash. It’s to earn cash. These guys are organized. They arrive to those areas to earn cash,” he said emphatically.
The gangs got here to Altoona. They fought over territory, and an increasing number of native residents turned hooked on the product — no matter drug it could be.
By 2006, the violence was as soon as once more surging.
Altoona Detective John McTigue was positioned in control of town’s vice and narcotics unit.
Medication had been having a serious impression on crime.
Thefts and burglaries spiked as customers sought cash to help their habits, he mentioned.
The variety of overdose deaths started to extend.
“The most important impression was on the households: the fathers, the sisters of drug addicts questioning when the decision was going to come back {that a} brother or sister had died attributable to overdose,” McTigue mentioned.
The households at the least knew if their relative went to jail, they weren’t going to overdose, he mentioned.
Gang violence was prevalent, McTigue mentioned, including: “We had been having a number of shootings early in 2006. Gangs had been warring over turf. There have been shootings on a regular basis.”
McTigue, as a member of the world’s drug activity power that was created in 1988, knew the drug world.
He mentioned he was appointed because the lead detective of the vice-narcotics unit to cease the violence.
“I beloved working for the Altoona Police Division. I gave my coronary heart and soul to that place for 25 years,” he mentioned.
Whereas his new job was 24/7 and really difficult, he favored working medication.
He took an aggressive strategy to the job, noting that the drug activity power would plan periodic raids throughout which a number of sellers could be rounded up. He modified the process.
He started hitting the road sellers onerous, not ready for a mass roundup. The duty power officers would make a purchase after which bust the small-time sellers. Police would observe the bust by issuing search warrant after search warrant.
The road sellers didn’t know what hit them, he mentioned.
Afraid of arrest, many customers started to go to native methadone clinics, and lots of agreed to grow to be informants.
“We had an enormous community of informants,” he mentioned.
Police had been lastly in a position to transcend the road sellers and determine the leaders who got here from main metropolitan areas.
One of many avenue gangs working domestically was the Bloods from Brooklyn.
As the warmth was turned up by the police, the leaders of the Bloods gang moved their operation again to Brooklyn.
When a person wanted a repair, he would name a quantity and place an order in Brooklyn.
An area supplier in Altoona could be apprised of the order and would give the medication to a “minion,” (as McTigue described them) who would make the precise supply.
The cash for the transaction could be transferred again to Brooklyn every day.
The leaders believed that that they had double safety from discovery, however the stress on the drug world got here to the purpose the place police knew when medication had been coming from Brooklyn and, as McTigue said, at one level the heroin provide domestically started to dwindle.
Police finally labored their strategy to the highest and launched a drug bust by which 29 sellers had been arrested, together with seven members of the Brooklyn Bloods.
The drug sweep put an finish to the $2 million drug operation.
Thomas Corbett — at the moment Pennsylvania’s lawyer normal — confirmed by means of New York authorities the seven suspects had been members of the Bloods group.
As for stopping the violence, McTigue gave an instance.
Police one evening served certainly one of their many search warrants at a Bell Avenue residence.
They separated the individuals inside the house for interviews, and as luck would have it, an informant was inside.
The informant instructed police that evening {that a} gang from Pittsburgh was going to kill gang members from New York, or as McTigue put it, “Pittsburgh was going to kill New York.”
The assault by no means occurred.
Blair County District Legal professional Pete Weeks believes in robust legislation enforcement and in stiff sentences for drug sellers, declaring that relationship between the drug world and crime.
Weeks mentioned he supported the best way McTigue went about his job in 2006-08, when the Altoona officer retired.
Earlier than coming to Blair County to fill a brand new place within the district lawyer’s workplace, Weeks labored in Lawrence County the place he was tutored by Senior Deputy Legal professional Normal Mike Awesh, who emphasised the connection between medication and crime.
Weeks mentioned he turned keen about his perception that legislation enforcement should make drug dealing extra expensive than no matter profit the supplier positive factors by practising his commerce.
Which means lengthy, very lengthy, sentences for drug gang leaders.
Blair County judges have supported that idea over time, and lots of such leaders who got here to Altoona to promote medication at the moment are within the state jail system serving many years in jail.
Weeks’ idea of addressing the drug downside by means of harsh sentences was challenged a number of years in the past by the now-deceased chief of the Blair County Chapter of the NAACP, Don Witherspoon, who maintained the lengthy sentences had been having a devastating impact on the African American group.
Weeks, nevertheless, emphasizes his workplace doesn’t deal with race with regards to sentencing, and he continues to hunt lengthy sentences for many who deal medication, significantly for repeat offenders.
Blair’s district lawyer famous that the primary 4 homicides he ever prosecuted as DA had been drug-related.
He believes in remedy choices and different packages, however he pressured the protection of the group is his prime precedence.
Drug conflict continues on many fronts
Weeks was employed in Blair County to fill a brand new place within the DA’s workplace funded by a novel group, Operation Our City.
It’s a one-of-a-kind program that units Blair County’s strategy to the drug challenge other than most different counties.
As McTigue was within the strategy of coping with out-of-town gangs, a bunch of businessmen and others had been upset with the impression of medication on the group.
Ron McConnell, who was then the chief working officer of Altoona Regional Well being System (now UPMC Altoona), was quoted by the Mirror in March 2007 as stating, “We’re offended and fed up with what’s going on in our group.”
Michael Fiore of the development agency of L.S. Fiore mentioned, “We’ve all seen what’s occurring in our neighborhoods due to the rise of unlawful drug use. As everyone is aware of, medication breed crime, usually violent crime, and the cycle of medication and crime can destroy a group.”
Operation Our City rallied the group to confront the drug downside by means of legislation enforcement.
Our City additionally supplies monetary help to companies that search to forestall drug abuse among the many younger, final yr offering grants to the Altoona Space Faculty District, Massive Brothers Massive Sisters, the Heart for Unbiased Residing, the Gloria Gates Basis, Leaders of Tomorrow and the 18th Avenue Neighborhood Church, Sanctuary Restoration Home, in addition to others.
The Operation Our City constitution was signed by Fiore, Phil Devorris, chief govt officer of Blair Corporations, and Joe Sheetz, the previous CEO of the Sheetz Inc.
It has offered grants for packages and help to legislation enforcement for the previous 15 years.
“Operation Our City is a incredible profit to us,” Weeks mentioned as he lent his help to an Our City program that offers younger individuals what he calls “a superb atmosphere” to go to after college.
“That’s what we should always all search for. It offers individuals hope in life. It retains youngsters from utilizing medication,” he mentioned.
One other sturdy supporter of Operation Our City is Randy Feathers, a former Altoona police officer who finally ascended to the place of director of the State School Regional Workplace of the Legal professional Normal’s Bureau of Narcotics Investigations and Management.
In referring to Operation Our City, Feathers commented that by 2006, shootings, gang exercise and drug overdoses had been escalating.
“It was like a toxic illness, a most cancers that unfold rapidly all through our neighborhoods, impacting our youth and endangering the lives of many,” he mentioned.
He mentioned a bunch of involved residents, in learning the issue, concluded legislation enforcement didn’t have the assets wanted to discourage and cut back the impression of legal conduct in our neighborhoods.
The battle shouldn’t be over, and in some ways it has simply begun.
“If we, for one minute, let our guard down, we are going to discover ourselves again the place we began,” Feathers mentioned. “We should stay unified as residents.”
NEXT WEEK: Operation Our City tries to assist native legislation enforcement stem the inflow of medication.
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