FRANKLIN/SALINE COs.—Authorities are apparently ignoring calls for more information as it regards the death of a young man on July 4.
Aaron Matthew Emery, 20, most recently of Carrier Mills in Saline County, died of a heroin overdose at a location in West Frankfort on that night.
His death has caused a surge in calls for addressing the dire problem southern Illinois is facing with heroin, which is rapidly descending into the epidemic status seen over the past several years in the Metro-East-St. Louis area of the western side of the state.
Non-law enforcement sources have made public the circumstances surrounding the death of Emery in brief: He was at a friend’s house in West Frankfort partying, and ended up “banging” (shooting up) some heroin that was “more pure than he was used to having.”
As a result, he shortly began to overdose, and when his partying contingent observed this, instead of taking him to a hospital or getting him any kind of emergency assistance on-scene, they moved him to another residence in West Frankfort, where he succumbed, reportedly after aspirating his own vomit.
Public officials nervous
The heroin aspect of the situation has reportedly made public officials in Franklin County extremely nervous, as that drug, as well as cocaine, has been said for years to be the choice of the higher-ups (including public officials) in Franklin and in adjacent Williamson County…and, as it’s unclear who exactly provided Emery with the dope, an investigation could lead to more trouble than those public officials (who ALSO get their dope from somewhere, including the possibility that it might be the same dealer who provided Emery with his) is prepared to contend with.
Add in to that the fact that Emery had a low-level criminal record coming out of Williamson (having been charged with multiple felony theft/burglary counts there since 2012…all of them dismissed, despite the seriousness of the crimes), and the inference there is that authorities aren’t really interested in pursuing the situation, as it might cause the eye of scrutiny to come upon them from the local dealer…or even people higher up.
Emery’s death has also brought out the revelation that there’s a “partying contingent” of his friends, many of them freshly graduated from high school, who opined on social networking sites that on the day of his funeral, they were going to, effectively, get stoned in memory of Emery.
This sentiment goes a long way to showing the mentality that’s pervasive among many southern Illinois youths, and is the sentiment that Emery’s mother Renee has been addressing in blog posts, begging kids to get it under control before such a thing happens to them and ruins another family forever.
Epidemic addressed
with ever-changing laws
Due in large part to the heroin epidemic that was ripping through the Metro-East several years ago, Illinois now has a host of laws that address not only drug possession and the dopers who use, but also makes accountable for death or injury the dope pusher who gave or sold the dope to his or her “customers.”
However, the 1989 drug-induced homicide law, intended to target higher-level dealers, has been poorly-applied in recent years, especially in southern Illinois, and has seen the conviction and imprisonment of people who were not “pushing,” but were only “dealing” (in many cases, not selling, but merely sharing)…thus allowing the higher-level dealers to get away unscathed, and the lower-level “sharers” to crowd up prisons. Those targeted by application of this law have been predominately fellow partiers, leading to hesitance on the part of those present when someone overdoses to tell the cops the truth…and leading to leaving an overdosing person to die, as what allegedly happened to Emery.
So Illinois legislators opted to apply the state’s so-called “Good Samaritan Law” to people who were present at an overdose, and conciliations have been made.
Called the Illinois SAFE Act, Public Act 096-0361, enacted in 2010, allows non-medical persons to administer Naloxone to another person in order to prevent an opioid/heroin overdose from becoming fatal…and provides that those present at the overdose and who have called for responders won’t be charged, even if the dope is out in the open.
It may seem contradictory in the face of the drug epidemic, but with overdoses continuing and leading to death, Illinois legislators are faced with public pressure to do something, and short of legalizing all drug use and allowing people to die off as a consequence of it until others aren’t tempted to do the fatal dosing anymore, there’s not a lot that can be done.