POLICE SEEK MURDER CHARGES AGAINST SUSPECTED HEROIN DEALERS

Alarmed by a surge in heroin-related deaths, Minneapolis and Richfield
police are asking Hennepin County prosecutors to charge suspected suppliers
with murder under a rarely used state law.

The first such case under review by prosecutors involves a 23-year-old
alleged heroin dealer from Richfield. Police said he didn't call 911 to
help his dying customer, but instead snatched cash and drugs, declared "I'm
out of here" and fled his apartment.

"If there is a way to prosecute, we will," County Attorney Amy Klobuchar
said Friday.

Before a decision is made on charges in the Richfield case, police and
prosecutors want to see test results that may reveal what substances were
in the body of Richard (Rick) Martin, 23, of Burnsville, who died March 5.
Doctors told his family and police that he could have been saved if 911 had
been called immediately, said his mother and Richfield police Lt. Todd Sandell.

Martin is one of at least eight people who have died of heroin-related
overdoses in Hennepin County this year, according to the medical examiner's
office. Twelve people died of heroin overdoses last year in Hennepin
County, where the problem appears to be concentrated. No similar trend has
been detected elsewhere in Minnesota.

On Thursday, White House officials warned that heroin use across the nation
is climbing, with the number of addicts now estimated at 900,000 -- a 50
percent increase in five years. Low-priced, exceptionally pure heroin is
considered partly to blame.

Barry McCaffrey, the nation's drug control policy director, said many of
the latest initiates are youths. "Many kids think heroin is safe because it
can now be snorted or smoked," he told a congressional committee.

In the Twin Cities, investigators say this year's overdoses have revealed
what may be a large heroin-selling network in the Minneapolis area.

Dealers are suspected of distributing a highly pure form of heroin known as
"China White," which is white rather than brown or tan, said Lt. Dan Grout
of the Minneapolis homicide unit. Some victims may have mistakenly believed
they were snorting cocaine, he said.

"To me this is becoming an epidemic for the illegal drug world," said
Grout, who spotted the surge while reviewing police reports last month. "I
think a lot of them are dying because they don't know what they're ingesting."

Police are asking for the public's help in identifying suppliers and they
also are warning people against using heroin, which played a role in the
deaths of at least 20 men and women in the past 15 months. Most died in
south Minneapolis.

In another death possibly related to heroin, the body of a 61-year-old
woman was found early Friday in the bathroom of her Stevens Square nursing
home. Syringes, suspected heroin and other drug paraphernalia were found
near her, police said.

Grout said police think the Richfield and Minneapolis cases may involve
some of the same drug distributors. Until tests can be completed, police
won't know whether heroin seized in the metro area is of high purity, he said.

The Richfield suspect was jailed on a felony drug charge but was released
after posting bail.

Minneapolis police have talked to prosecutors about the possibility of
charging other suspected suppliers in other deaths. An assistant Hennepin
County attorney has been assigned to work with homicide detectives on the
cases, but no other cases have been presented yet to prosecutors for
charging decisions.

A tough statute

Prosecutors say it may be difficult to obtain a third-degree murder
conviction in a fatal heroin overdose because the law requires proof that
the drug killed the person and that the suspect sold or gave it to the victim.

Hennepin County prosecutors said that they know of no convictions in
Minnesota under that section of law. State court records show no
convictions under the law from 1994 through 1998, the most recent year for
which statistics are available.

James Backstrom, Dakota County attorney, said the statute is vague.
Klobuchar conferred with him Friday about the law but declined to discuss
her views of it while her office is reviewing such cases.

Backstrom said that the law is rarely used because it requires prosecutors
to prove a drug was the "proximate cause" of death. Beyond furnishing the
drug, the supplier would need to know that it could cause death, Backstrom
said.

If, for example, the supplier knew that others had died from a batch of
heroin, or that the drug recipient had ingested other drugs or alcohol
thatcould make him or her more vulnerable, prosecutors could have a better
chance of convicting someone, he said.

"If you know as a drug dealer that you're dealing with an extremely pure
form of heroin that could be deadly if ingested in the normal quantities
typically used on the street," Backstrom said, "then under those
circumstances it could be proven that the dealer proximately caused the
deaths."

Grout doesn't agree. He said the law requires proof that a dealer supplied
the drug that caused the fatal overdose. For Martin's family and police,
the bottom line is clear: It's homicide and it should be treated that way.

Death of a young man

Rick Martin was an easygoing, well-liked man with a job at a printing
company and a position on a new soccer team, the sport he had so avidly
played as a boy, his family says.

At 23, he loved the Beatles and had just bought an electric guitar that he
planned to learn to play. For the past six months, he had been living with
his parents, who don't drink alcohol or smoke. Martin, a 1994 Burnsville
High School graduate, was one of three sons in a close-knit family.

He had made some bad choices as a young man, and his older brother, Ron,
had warned him recently to steer clear of cocaine, which he had used
before. A doctor had prescribed antidepressants for Rick, but to his family
it seemed he was doing fine, said Ron and their mother, Judy Martin.

Recently, Martin had begun to see an old high school acquaintance who lived
in Richfield. Sandell, the Richfield police lieutenant, said the
23-year-old suspect had been using and selling heroin for some time.

According to Sandell, Martin died after this chain of events: On March 4,
he visited the suspect's apartment and snorted a white powder. It's unclear
whether Martin, who had been drinking, knew it was heroin.

When he began having difficulty breathing, the other man didn't call 911.
He left the apartment and went across the street to get another
acquaintance at a gas station. The two returned, stripped off Martin's
clothes and placed him in the shower. They tried to revive Martin by
attempting cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Finally, the acquaintance called 911. The suspect grabbed cash and some but
not all of the heroin. The suspect said, "He's dead. I'm out of here,"
according to police who interviewed the acquaintance.

Hennepin County ambulances are equipped with Narcan, a heroin antidote that
can swiftly reverse the effects of the drug. But doctors told Martin's
family that he had gone at least 15 minutes without oxygen. He was
essentially "brain dead" at the hospital and was pronounced dead the next day.

Judy Martin said her son's death was devastating, and she was crushed to
learn that heroin was involved. The pain of their loss, she said, has been
unbearable for the family.

"It's so easy for young people to think you're invincible and you're not
going to die," Ron Martin said. "Mortality is for everyone, young and old.
You can't be too careful with your life."

Legal issues remain

Police said preliminary findings of the medical examiner showed that Martin
had been drinking and that he also was on prescription antidepressants.
Both can amplify the effect that heroin has on depressing a person's
respiratory system.

From a legal perspective, the question is whether the heroin was lethal,
whether full responsibility for the death can be placed on the dealer and
whether prosecutors can prove that.

The final toxicology results, which may take up to two more weeks, probably
will be the deciding factor in whether the supplier is charged with murder,
police and prosecutors said.

The man was arrested March 9, a few days after the death, on the felony
drug charge. His name isn't being published because he hasn't been charged
in connection with Martin's death.

As the number of heroin-related deaths mounts, Klobuchar said, her office
will prosecute dealers if possible. A conviction for third-degree murder in
a drug overdose carries a recommended sentence of four to nine years in
prison, depending on the suspect's criminal record.

Federal law allows stiffer sentences if a person who distributed drugs
caused a user's death. The penalties range from 20 years to life in prison,
said Todd Jones, U.S. attorney for Minnesota.

He said Minneapolis and Richfield police haven't contacted him about the
recent heroin-overdose cases.

Judy Martin said the uncertainty about charges in her son's death saddens her.

"I have to have faith that if the legal system can't serve justice," she
said, "then I'm going to leave it in God's hands."