Cops being kept in dark about kid who OD’d

Signs about a drug incident were posted in Tahoe City before law enforcement was called. Photo/LTN

By Kathryn Reed

Placer County sheriff’s deputies are trying to get to the bottom of an incident involving a 12-year-old who nearly died after ingesting water that reportedly had the drug molly in it.

Signs were placed along bike trails in Tahoe City asking people for information and to call A.W.A.R.E.

No one from A.W.A.R.E. returned a phone call.

The sheriff’s department was sent the same flyer and also has not received a call back. They also don’t know anything about this group. Nor is it known who put up the $10,000 reward money.

What alarms the sheriff’s department is that neither the parents nor the hospital called law enforcement. It is state law that a medical facility must notify officers when a crime may have been committed. A youth under the influence of anything is an indication a crime has occurred; it could just be having access to the substance, or being a user – intentionally or not.

“We found out who the child is. We spoke to the mother. Something happened, we don’t know what happened because nobody has been forthcoming,” Dena Erwin, sheriff’s spokeswoman, told Lake Tahoe News.

It has not been determined if a crime occurred or if the youth willingly ingested the drug. The hallucinogenic can cause serious damage to a body, especially to someone not fully grown. The condition of the child is not known.

“We haven’t confirmed it was MDMA because no one has given us blood results,” Irwin said.

Allison Williams with Renown Medical Center in Reno told Lake Tahoe News it is standard operating procedure to let Child Protective Services or another appropriate agency know of a case like this. She didn’t know why Placer deputies were not alerted.

“We are not sure where the disconnect was,” Williams said.