Ohio Police Share Graphic Photos Of Couple Overdosing On Drugs With 4-Year-Old Child In The Car

City of Liverpool / Via Facebook: cityofeastliverpool

The City of East Liverpool, Ohio shared two graphic photos on Facebook depicting a couple overdosing on drugs in the front seat of a car while the 4-year-old child of one of the adults sat in the backseat.

“We feel it necessary to show the other side of this horrible drug. We feel we need to be a voice for the children caught up in this horrible mess,” the post says. “This child can't speak for himself but we are hopeful his story can convince another user to think twice about injecting this poison while having a child in their custody.”

The post notes that making the photos public was a combined decision by the city administration, law director, and the police department.

According to the police report, which was also posted on Facebook, East Liverpool police officer Kevin Thompson responded on September 7 to a report of a Ford Explorer with a West Virginia license plate “driving very erratic weaving back and forth” before skidding to a stop in the middle of the road behind a school bus in the process of letting children off.

Thompson wrote that that driver, identified as James Acord, was speaking unintelligibly, his head was bobbing up and down, and eventually became unconscious during the stop. The passenger, Rhonda Pasek, was completely unconscious and “turning blue” the officer said. The boy in the backseat was later identified as Pasek’s son.

Inside the car, police found a “yellow folded up piece of paper” between Pasek’s legs containing a “small amount of a pink powdery substance.”

Thompson said he called for an ambulance and the emergency personnel who responded were able to administer Narcan, which is commonly used to reverse an opiate overdose, to Acord and Pasek. The couple regained consciousness and were transported to the East Liverpool Police Department. They were charged with endangering children, stopping in a roadway, and public intoxication. The child was taken into the custody of Columbiana County Children's Services.

At the time of this writing, East Liverpool’s post had been shared more 12,000 times on Facebook and is eliciting a mixed reaction. Some have criticized the City officials for not blurring the face of the child (BuzzFeed News has blacked out his face in this story). Others have praised the city for releasing the photos to the public and driving awareness to the growing epidemic of drug overdoses in the state of Ohio.

“We are well aware that some may be offended by these images and for that we are truly sorry, but it is time that the non drug using public sees what we are now dealing with on a daily basis. The poison known as heroin has taken a strong grip on many communities not just ours, the difference is we are willing to fight this problem until it's gone and if that means we offend a few people along the way we are prepared to deal with that,” the post says.

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