WAYNE COUNTY FENTANYL SUSPECT IS ARRESTED

Charges Pending After Detroit Raid

Wayne County sheriff's deputies and federal drug agents arrested a
convicted drug dealer during a raid on his home in Midtown Detroit on
Thursday. One official characterized it as a breakthrough in the
investigation into sources of fentanyl-laced heroin blamed for
killing scores of people.

A joint investigation by the Sheriff's Department and the federal
Drug Enforcement Administration into the deaths of several heroin
users who purchased drugs in the Jeffries public housing project led
to the raid Thursday.

It is the second known raid in a week as law enforcement steps up its
efforts to find the sources of drugs containing the painkiller, which
is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine.

Fentanyl, which is mixed with cocaine or heroin to create a more
intense high, is suspected in at least 80 overdose deaths since
September in Wayne County.

On Thursday, Deputy John Roach, a spokesman for Wayne County Sheriff
Warren Evans, called the arrest of a 45-year-old convicted drug
dealer "a major breakthrough" in the search for the source of a
heroin-fentanyl mix called "Magic." Roach said the raid identified "a
major distribution point."

He said "several of the deaths have led us to drug purchases in the Jeffries."

Evans and Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano scheduled a news
conference today to discuss details of the investigation.

The name of the man arrested was not released pending charges and
analysis of suspected drugs found in his condominium near Wayne State
University, which was not complete Thursday evening.

Another law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity
said the Jeffries housing complex, on the western side of the Lodge
Freeway between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Canfield Avenue,
is the site of many heroin sales to suburban drug addicts because of
its convenient location.

"It's an easy off and easy on place," the official said. He added,
however, that the site is probably one of many sources for illegal
drugs in the city.

Authorities suspect one of those sources was a home on Keating near
John R. and Seven Mile in Detroit where Lauren Jolly, a 17-year-old
Bloomfield Township high school student, is believed to have
overdosed on May 24.

Donald Coleman, who police say is a drug dealer, is being held on a
parole violation in Jolly's death. Coleman, 26, and his brother,
James Edgar Coleman, 36, were arrested by officers from the Detroit
Police Major Crimes Division and federal drug agents on Saturday
after a raid on the house.

Lauren Jolly told police about the house after she was arrested for
possession of heroin laced with fentanyl about six weeks before her death.

Thursday's arrest was the third made as part of the investigation
into drug trafficking at the Jeffries projects in recent weeks,
officials said. Authorities did not say precisely what led them to
the Midtown condominium, however.

Fentanyl-laced drugs have been a growing concern in cities across the
nation, with deaths reported in St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Chicago and elsewhere.

In Wayne County, an explosion of deaths in late May and early June,
which were believed to be related to fentanyl, led state officials to
ask investigators from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention to visit and prepare a report on the outbreak.

The report has not yet been released.