The nationwide battle against the synthetic opioid fentanyl has hit North Texas.
The fentanyl-related deaths of three students from Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District are linked to a local couple who are now facing federal charges, according to police.
Agents with the Drug Enforcement Agency surveilled then raided a house in the 1800 block of Highland Drive Friday. Agents arrested 21-year-old Luis Navarrete and 29-year-old Magaly Mejia Cano, accusing them of dealing fentanyl outside of the residence, located between Turner High School and Dewitt Perry Middle School.
According to the criminal complaint, the two dealt “percocet” and “oxycontin” pills laced with fentanyl to several teen drug dealers, mostly students from Turner High School. Those dealers then sold the counterfeit pills to classmates and children at Dewitt Perry and Dan Long Middle Schools.
Get DFW local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC DFW newsletters.
The fatal overdoses involve students enrolled in DeWitt Perry and Dan F. Long Middle Schools as well as R.L. Turner High School. In a statement to NBC 5, the CFBISD said, "We are limited on the information we can share about circumstances surrounding events that occur off our campuses".
Between September and February, nine students from these schools, ranging in age from 13 to 17, overdosed. Three died. One 14-year-old girl survived after overdosing twice and was temporarily paralyzed.
“What I’ve read about fentanyl, I wouldn’t even try it,” resident Abel Hernandez said. “Why? It seems dumb and dangerous but I guess kids do that so it just surprised me that it was coming from a home so close and I didn’t even know about it.”
Fentanyl is about 50 times more potent than heroin. A few grains can be deadly.
Lilia Astudillo told NBC 5 that her son, 14-year-old Jose Alberto Perez, was one of the three students who died. She said it was late January when she walked into his bedroom to find him unresponsive.
“I didn't want to believe it, I thought he was playing with me, I thought it was one of his jokes, but no, it was true,” she said.
Special Agent in Charge Eduardo Chavez is with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Dallas. He said the DEA knew the distribution of fentanyl was increasing in North Texas, and agents have worked aggressively to get the incredibly lethal drug off the streets.
“Two milligrams is considered a lethal dose. Two milligrams can fit on the tip of a pencil,” Chavez said. “There’s no such thing as experimentation with these pills.”
Chavez said six out of every ten pills seized in DFW have potentially lethal doses of fentanyl. The agency is also battling the misunderstanding that drugs in pill form aren’t as harmful. He said just one try is all it takes to change lives forever.
“Pills, I think, overall, are a very disarming sort of thing. You get weaned off of liquid medications and liquid vitamins when you are maybe eight or nine years old and your parents are teaching you how to take a vitamin or an antibiotic,” he said. “And so, to see a pill, it is not the same perhaps in any of our minds as it is for someone to pull out a shard of methamphetamine. So I think for all of those reasons there’s a misperception of the ability for it to harm you.”
Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Interim Superintendent, Brian Moersch, released a statement saying, “We must come together as a community to solve this problem that is endangering our children. We strongly encourage adults to engage in open conversations with children about the risks of drugs, especially fentanyl.”
The U..S Attorney for the Northern District of Texas called the couple’s actions “despicable.” Both appeared in federal court Monday. If convicted, the suspects each face up to 20 years in federal prison. Another hearing is set for Friday.
According to the school district's website, in an effort to prevent fentanyl use in schools, "CFBISD has started random canine searches at our secondary campuses."
On Thursday evening, Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District will hold an open meeting for parents. The meeting will center around fentanyl.
According to a Facebook post, presenters include, "Officer Stefanovic, School Resource Officer; Monica Belen and Heidi Whitehill, Chemical Dependency Councilors, Heather Hays, RN Turner HS; and Sandra Lieck, CFBISD Director Health Services,".
The meeting will be hosted by the school district's Student Health Advisory Council or SHAC on Feb. 9 at 7 p.m. at the Educational Services Division Complex's Building B Texas Room located at 1820 Pearl St. in Carrollton,
75006.
