Police busted the leader of a local Boy Scouts troop and another man on heroin and firearms charges during a drug raid in Staten Island Friday.
Agents with the Staten Island Narcotics Heroin Overdose Task Force arrested 25-year-old Kevin Saunders and 44-year-old Alan Soler at Soler’s home, where officers found 277 baggies of heroin. Police also seized a shotgun, an imitation pistol, scales and packaging materials during the search, reports Staten Island Live.
Saunders was registered as a local Boy Scouts leader, however, a representative for Boy Scouts of America says he has since been placed on a list of ineligible volunteers. Soler, who has a sign on his lawn that says, “SI HOPE: Staten Island Against Drug Abuse,” is not officially connected with the Boy Scouts, but was placed on a list of parents barred from participating in the program.
“My wife and I saw the (SI HOPE) sign, and thought it was kind of strange,” an unidentified neighbor told Staten Island Live. “I thought (heroin) was only on the South Shore, but I guess it’s everywhere.”
Three children between the ages of eight and 11 were in the home at the time of the search. The pair face a litany of drug and firearm charges, as well as a charge of acting in a manner injurious to a child under 17.
Drug addiction is wreaking havoc in states throughout the country, and the problem appears to be getting worse.
Nationally, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing 63,600 people in 2016. The increase is driven primarily by opioids, which claimed 42,249 lives last year, a 28 percent increase over the roughly 33,000 lives lost to opioids in 2015, according to data released Dec. 21 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Opioid overdoses made up a staggering 66 percent of all drug overdose deaths in 2016, surpassing the annual number of lives lost to breast cancer.
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