6 Inmates Overdose On Drugs in County Jails: Officials
RIVERHEAD, NY — Six inmates overdosed on drugs over the weekend at two Suffolk County correctional facilities, officials said.
According to Chief Michael Sharkey of Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon's office, one inmate overdosed in the Yaphank facility Saturday and five overdosed on Sunday in the Riverhead jail.
No deaths were reported and all the inmates are back at their respective facilities now, he said.
When asked what drugs the inmates overdosed on, Sharkey said, "Any product that we found is subject to testing from the crime lab."
The overdoses took place at a time when Suffolk County correctional facilities are closed to outside visitors, Sharkey said. An investigation into how the drugs got in to the facility is ongoing, he said.
"We do still have new prisoners coming in — that is the most likely source," Sharkey said.
The inmates who overdosed were immediately treated by on-site medical staff at the jails, taken to local emergency rooms, and then, returned to the facilities on the same day, Sharkey said.
When asked if the overdoses had anything to do with a batch of reportedly deadly fentanyl-laced cocaine reported on the streets of the Riverhead area by District Attorney Tim Sini recently, Sharkey said no substance involved in the overdoses could be immediately confirmed.
"We are very interested in the source and makeup of the chemical that was introduced into the inmates' bodies, as well as the circumstances of how it made its way in and how inmates distributed it to one another — what it was and where it originated from," Sharkey said.
The inmates involved in the overdoses are being investigated and are on lockdown, he added, but the rest of the inmate population is not, Sharkey said.
When asked if there would be enhanced security following the overdoses, Sharkey said: "We evaluate everything as we do in every investigation."
It's too early in the investigation, he said, to determine if the issue is something that can be addressed by a change in policy or police procedure.
This article originally appeared on the Riverhead Patch
