15 PEOPLE REQUIRE MEDICAL ATTENTION AFTER USING BAD HEROIN

A potent form of laced heroin sent at least 15 people from Chicago's
West Side to area hospitals Saturday, the latest in a rash of
neighborhood-centric drug overdoses, officials said.

At least nine medical emergency calls originated Saturday morning,
all within about a one-mile radius in the Humboldt Park area and all
within a two-hour period, police and fire officials said.

At least 12 of the victims were men in their 20s or 30s.

Shortly before 10 a.m. police received a call reporting two alleged
drug users stumbling from a garage behind a home in the 1100 block of
North Springfield Avenue, Chicago police Lt. Diane O'Sullivan said.

Around this time, Chicago Fire Department employees responding to a
nearby overdose saw several men running from the same garage.

Inside the garage, authorities found three men in a drug-induced
stupor and in need of medical attention, said John Harding, field
officer for the Chicago Fire Department. The two-car garage also was
littered with about 200 hypodermic needles, baggies of what appeared
to be heroin, tin-foil wrappers and small mounds of human feces.

"It was a shooting gallery, and it was used heavily," Harding said,
referring to users shooting heroin. "This has been an ongoing problem
for the last month. There's been clusters like this across the city."

Authorities said they believe the drug is a mixture of heroin and the
prescription drug Fentanyl, a pain killer that, when mixed with
heroin, magnifies the potency by about 100 times, Harding said.

Several residents of the Humboldt Park neighborhood said drug dealers
regularly give free samples in order to hook new users.

Maria Uribe, 44, a mother of five, said she moved from the
neighborhood three months ago largely because of a growing drug
problem. "It's very accessible," she said. "These people need help."

Police said they recovered drugs at the scene and have taken it in
for testing. Three people were in custody, police said, but their
role in the overdoses was not released. No charges have been filed as
of Saturday evening.

The incidents on Saturday mimic a rash of heroin overdoses that swept
across the West and South Sides recently.

In a 24-hour period on the South Side last month, 25 people between
the ages of 17 and 73 had overdosed, including a 51-year-old woman
who died at her home.

Police have said they are teaming with federal officials to try
disrupting the drug's flow into the city.