Heroin And Fentanyl Kill 2 Strongsville Residents

STRONGSVILLE, OH — Two Strongsville residents died from fatal heroin/fentanyl overdoses in April, according to a new report from the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner. Strongsville was one of two suburban cities to record more than one heroin/fentanyl overdose death last month, the other being Lakewood.

The two deaths in Strongsville are part of another fatal month in Cuyahoga County that saw at least 41 people die from a fatal overdose of either heroin, fentanyl, or a combination of the two. Another nine cases are waiting the results of toxicology testing and could increase the number of deaths related to the narcotics.

April's 41 confirmed overdose deaths means that 187 Cuyahoga County residents have died from overdosing on heroin, fentanyl, or a combination of the two in 2017. The total of overdose deaths rises to 237 when cocaine overdoses are included. Eleven of the cocaine related deaths in April were from people mixing fentanyl with the cocaine.

Strongsville Police Chief Mark Fender said in January 2017 that battling the heroin crisis was one of his top priorities.

"We have a very active group of people that are proactive in investigating and prosecuting drug trafficking. We have guys that are passionate about getting that stuff off our streets. I think of the city of Strongsville as my house. We develop a culture where each officer has a sense of responsibility that when something occurs in our city, it occurs in their house," he said at the time. "How many of us would want those drugs coming into our house? We wouldn’t. It would be unacceptable. There should be a passion coming from each of us. We investigate to the fullest and work those cases all the way up to distribution and work with state and federal partners to produce arrests."

The majority of those killed in April by heroin and fentanyl are from Cleveland, with 25 confirmed dead in the city. Sixteen suburban residents were killed by the drugs last month. Here are where the suburban overdose deaths occurred:

• Bedford,
• Brooklyn,
• Euclid,
• Garfield Heights,
• Lakewood (2),
• Newburgh Heights,
• Parma,
• Richmond Heights,
• Shaker Heights,
• Strongsville (2) and
• 3 out of county residents – Kent, Mentor, and Willard.

The majority of the overdose deaths were men, with 31 killed. Additionally, 34 of the 41 killed were white.

In 2016, through the first trimester of the year, there were 140 heroin/fentanyl deaths. That number has jumped to 187 in 2017. Last year, there were 506 total overdose deaths as a result of those two opiates.

The Medical Examiner's office report for April notes that in the past 13 months, there have been 188 more fentanyl related deaths than in the previous 10 years.

The full Medical Examiner's report for the month of April is available by clicking here.

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