When I observed her and then her collar I thought she was deceased at that point
As a police officer they trained you to expect the unexpected but
Even as much time of a paddle at 3:11 in the afternoon, that was the furthest thing from my life
On that day, I was actually on my way into work I ended up behind this vehicle. I noticed that it was driving
What what I turned is erratic after I made contact with the driver and he actually went unconscious
I wanted to render first aid and call for assistance
When I showed up that's what I observed both of them passed out and near dead
It was during school time. I saw a lot of people there with their kids
There's a bus stop right there where all this was happening
And the first thing I saw coming from my angle I said there's a kid in the backseat. I
Went around the back end of it open the door up
He was really shy really scared and I don't blame him. I
Could just see the pain and the trauma in his eyes. I
decided to take several photographs
To document the incident for courtroom evidence. I
just unfastened the boy from his car seat and he eventually turned and looked at me and just like
Climbed up on me
And he's wrapped around here on my side sitting on my gun belt and I could just feel this little kid's heart pounding
You know right up on my ribcage here. I
Was calling for Children's Services and our dispatcher called back saying they need some information and I was pretty heated
I'm not gonna lie
I'd yell back over the radio, you know, just tell them get their butts here now Fred says well
Let's send him a picture of this and then they'll see why they need to get their butts here. I
Was born and raised here in East Liverpool, it's a great place to grow up, you know, you learn a lot about hard work
Unfortunately since that time things have really deteriorated
75 percent of our population received some form of assistance from the federal government and that's really the tragedy that we're dealing with here, right?
Now opioids are definitely our biggest problem is the people are dying from it
It's not just heroin and fentanyl a car fentanyl that's where they're over doesn't because they're so strong
We had an epidemic and not only us
Small-town America does
It's across countries every small department
We're fighting and fighting and fighting this it's frustrating
We're losing the battle. We aren't we're losing
We're trying we're gonna keep fighting but we're losing
This isn't something that's being stirring for the past five six years. I think it's culminated into one
big incident now
After the driver had pled guilty
The police chief showed me the photograph and I just stood there silently
I couldn't believe that someone would put that little boy in that position
Sadly, it happens a lot
But this is the first time we was actually captured in a photograph
We were all in agreement that it should be seen we talked about how we could alter the child's face
you just you couldn't get the story and
Unfortunately as a public official it's a felony for me to blur that photo
There is no number of words that can paint that type of picture coming into work the next day
I could not believe the views that the pitcher had you know, and how many times it was shared
We kind of looked each other like well good
Good, let's get this out there
Releasing that picture made things happen immediately that would have probably not even happened at all or at the very best was taken years
It definitely got got him out of there. And that was the most important part
That picture started getting
Agencies and policymakers and law enforcement talking about the epidemic that's going on and it drew attention to more resources
access for people needing treatment
We're opening a new clinic in East Liverpool in conjunction with the outpatient services, we already have due to the need in the community
Look what's happening our little community of
13,000 people we live in a day and age. Unfortunately where people think there are no ones that anything should be out there
it's fair game in these type of
Circumstances and here we're dealing with a four year old little boy
We can't necessarily make those type of decisions as to whether or not he wanted to be in that photograph
The family has been trying diligently though to protect him 20 years from now
is it going to be that this is the image of the heroin epidemic as a
Clinician, you know, I feel that it's my job to be able to advocate for people that are struggling with addiction
I think that posting photos of addicts does probably have them feel pretty shameful and embarrass
These pictures might keep somebody from reaching out for help because they feel nobody cares about me
They should have just let me die and not use nor can
We know what we did. We're all confident in what we did was right
So if it upset you, I'm sorry
But this is to react this is reality. I would do it again
If the same situation arises tonight that will be posted. I
Never would have dreamed that
This picture would have had the power that it has that you're sitting you're interviewing me you get people from the state calling me to
Help they never called me before that's all from the power of one picture