Three weeks after one man died from a suspected overdose at a downtown jail, authorities mentioned one other seven Males’s Central Jail inmates had been hospitalized early Tuesday morning following one other potential drug publicity incident.
Shortly earlier than 7 a.m., jail deputies responded to a medical emergency within the Bauchet Avenue jail’s 5600 dorm, in line with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division. Along with taking lifesaving measures — together with giving the boys the overdose-reversing drug naloxone — deputies requested assist from the Los Angeles Fireplace Division.
Paramedics took all seven males to native hospitals “as a precautionary measure,” although hearth officers mentioned six had been secure and acutely aware. One was in crucial situation.
“We’re really praying that he makes it,” Sheriff Robert Luna mentioned in a press convention later Tuesday morning. “We have a zero tolerance [policy] for any narcotics in any of our custody facilities, so there will be a very thorough investigation about how, what, when, why, and all that, because we need to figure out how this happens so we can prevent it from happening again.”
After the incident, jailers cleared out the dorm — then went again later within the day to look the world for medicine. Simply earlier than 3 p.m., officers mentioned, seven custody employees conducting that search had been taken to native hospitals after “experiencing symptoms potentially related to today’s earlier suspected overdose incident,” in line with the division.
The division didn’t specify what these signs had been or clarify precisely how the jailers might have been uncovered however mentioned that they had been solely despatched to the hospital as a precaution. All of them remained acutely aware and in secure situation, the division mentioned.
In an announcement Tuesday, the Sheriff’s Division mentioned it’s working to maintain medicine out of the jails with the assistance of mail scanners, physique scanners and drug-sniffing canine.
“The department is optimistic that in the near future,” the assertion continued, “we will have the use of updated technological solutions, including more advanced body and property scanners that will further assist us in minimizing illicit substances in the jails.”
The division has additionally labored to handle the issue by investigating its personal workers. In April, a sheriff’s deputy who was a part of a job pressure centered on preserving the county lockups free of medicine and gang exercise was arrested and accused of smuggling medicine into one of many county jails.
Drug use and drug overdoses have been persistent issues contained in the jails. On October 8, seven folks had been hospitalized and one man in his 30s died from suspected overdoses in a holding cell on the Inmate Reception Heart. Authorities haven’t mentioned what medicine had been concerned or how the inmates might need obtained them.
In June, six inmates and two jailers at one other county jail had been taken to the hospital after they had been uncovered to a “toxic substance,” which jail officers have since confirmed was fentanyl, although it isn’t clear how the inmates and employees got here into contact with it.
At Tuesday’s information convention, Luna mentioned being round fentanyl in any “shape, way or form” may “cause immediate death.” Medical consultants, nevertheless, have repeatedly debunked claims that fentanyl may be absorbed merely by means of pores and skin contact. The drug is routinely utilized by docs throughout surgical procedures, and overdoses usually contain smoking, injecting, or inhaling illicit fentanyl.
Leo Beletsky, a professor of regulation and well being sciences who research habit at Northeastern College, mentioned regulation enforcement officers have repeatedly misstated the hazards of fentanyl publicity lately.
“It has been conclusively shown that you cannot overdose by touching or accidentally breathing in fentanyl, and it does not have magical powers that supersede the laws of science or nature,” he advised The Occasions, including that incorrect data may “discourage people from aiding folks who may be experiencing an overdose.”
It’s not clear whether or not fentanyl was concerned in Tuesday’s incident, and the sheriff declined to invest what drug may have sparked the newest cluster of suspected overdoses.
The division mentioned this week that its Organized Crime Process Power and Operation Protected Jails are each investigating.
