A New York 11-year-old has died with fentanyl in his system at a “known drug house” just months after a dead body was discovered at the same home, police said.
Ashton DeGonzaque of Syracuse died at the hospital on Thursday after being found “unresponsive” inside his father’s apartment on E. Division St., Syracuse.com reports.
The young boy was a student at Grant Middle School when he passed away from an apparent drug overdose. His great-aunt, Vickie Homer, told the outlet that he had tested positive for cocaine, fentanyl, and cannabis. She claimed not to know how the drugs got into his system.
Police have yet to release an official cause of death and are still investigating.
DeGonzaque’s tragic death comes after a November incident when a dead body was found next to the front door of the home.
The body turned out to be that of a 50-year-old family friend whom DeGonzaque considered an “uncle,” police spokesperson Sgt. Thomas Blake told the outlet.
Blake was one of the officers called to the apartment — which Homer referred to as a known drug house — during both disturbing incidents.
Police have not released the adult male’s cause of death, though Homer said he also died of an overdose.
“A neighbor who asked not to be identified said on any given day she would see about 10 strangers coming and going from the apartment,” the outlet reported. “They were noticeably high.”
According to Blake, DeGonzaque was a good kid trapped in a bad situation.
“It has to be absolutely traumatizing,” the sergeant said, recalling how another adult present at the apartment became confrontational when officers responded in November and how the young boy tried to defuse the situation.
DeGonzaque apparently scolded the adult and told him to be respectful and cooperate with police, Blake said. The sergeant added that a relative arrived at the apartment while police were interviewing the child and appeared to show genuine concern for his living conditions.
While his father lived at the apartment, DeGonzaque was frequently “bouncing around from place to place,” Syracuse.com states. A previous article from the outlet says that the boy’s mom was not in his life.
“It didn’t seem like a loving environment,” Blake said.
He even tried to sign the boy up for a “Shop with a Cop” charity event before Christmas, but the deadline had just passed.
“I just remember thinking, maybe this kid could get a better life and not have to live like this,” the sergeant said.
The fentanyl problem in Syracuse has been stealing the lives of innocent children for some time.
On April 25, 2023, two-year-old Mehlaya succumbed to a fatal overdose at her grandmother’s home. No charges were filed in relation to her death, and the Onondaga District Attorney’s Office is still investigating nearly a year later, Breitbart News reported.
The toddler’s mother, Heaven Blue, mourned and called for justice for her daughter in a now-viral interview.
“I let her go with people that I thought … was going to be good to her,” Blue said. “But my daughter died from an overdose with fentanyl in her system. And nobody … knows how that happened.”
A new book exposing the culprits behind the American fentanyl crisis has reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller’s list, Breitbart News reported.
Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans by Peter Schweizer dives deep into corruption between U.S. figures — such as President Joe Biden — the Chinese government, and organized criminal rings that traffick drugs into the country.
According to the publisher’s blurb:
Schweizer and his team of forensic investigators spent more than two years scouring a trove of restricted Chinese military documents, data-mining a mountain of American financial records, and tracking US political leaders’ investments and family businesses. Schweizer unloads bombshell after bombshell, exposing the Chinese Communist Party’s covert operations in the American drug trade, social justice movement, and medical establishment to sow chaos and decadence in the United States.
Peter Schweizer, author of Blood Money (BNN)
