A Portland, Oregon, toddler has died of a suspected fentanyl overdose, authorities said.
A two-year-old girl died after being rushed to the hospital from a home in the 9000 block of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard after it was reported that she was suffering from cardiac arrest, KPTV reported.
The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) arrived at the residence around 2:30 p.m. and gathered statements from firefighters who got their first and took evidence from the home.
PPB Chief Bob Day said their preliminary investigation points to fentanyl being a factor in the child’s death.
“I am incredibly saddened to hear about the death of this little girl,” Day told the outlet. “This tragedy impacts the child’s family, friends, neighbors, the first responders, and our entire community.”
“We at the Portland Police Bureau are committed to investigating and arresting people who are illegally distributing these dangerous substances. And we will continue working with our partners at the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office to ensure they are prosecuted,” he added.
Neighbors of the girl, whose identity was not published by the outlet, were saddened by the poor outcome.
“It’s really depressing. Something happened to a child. It’s not good but there’s such a flow of drugs in the area. It’s a huge, huge problem,” local man Paul Hooson said.
“It’s disgusting. It sickens me because I have children and grandchildren. I don’t want to think about it and whoever’s involved, they need to be caught,” said Debra Fox, who also lives nearby.
The official cause of death still has yet to be released by the medical examiner’s office, but this tragedy is far from the only recent child death allegedly caused by fentanyl.
Another two-year-old girl, Mehlaya, succumbed to a fatal overdose at her grandmother’s Syracuse, New York home when she was just two years old in April 2023, Breitbart News reported.
“I let her go with people that I thought … was going to be good to her,” Mehlaya’s heartbroken mother, Heaven Blue, said in a viral interview with Syracuse.com. “But my daughter died from an overdose with fentanyl in her system. And nobody that was there around her knows how that happened.”
In another case in California, a mom was arrested in May after her one-year-old died of “acute fentanyl intoxication” from drugs that were allegedly left near where the infant slept, FOX 40 reported.
Christy Scarbrough, 40, was charged with child abuse with possible great bodily injury or death and abuse resulting in death, Breitbart News reported.
“Detectives obtained additional evidence indicating Scarbrough was using fentanyl before and after the infant’s death,” the Chico Police Department said.
As the fentanyl crisis sweeps across the U.S., Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer has worked to reveal who is really behind the deliberate poisoning of American youth.
In his latest book, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans, the seven-time New York Times bestselling author revealed how Chinese dictator Xi Jinping has allowed criminal groups to push fentanyl into the U.S.
A breakdown of the book uncovered five ties between Xi and organized crime groups.
