Police have shared an image of a man and a woman passed out in a car with a child in the back after the pair allegedly overdosed on heroin.
The images were shared on the City of East Liverpool's Facebook page in an attempt to raise awareness about the growing heroin epidemic in Ohio, USA.
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Warning: Distressing images
Credit: East Liverpool City Police Department
The caption reads:
The city Police department recently responded to a call of an incapacitated driver, attached are photos from the scene along with the actual police report. The city administration works hand in hand with our men in blue to combat this epidemic and together with the law director we have made the decision to release the attached.
We feel it necessary to show the other side of this horrible drug. We feel we need to be a voice for the children caught up in this horrible mess. This child can't speak for himself but we are hopeful his story can convince another user to think twice about injecting this poison while having a child in their custody.
We are well aware that some may be offended by these images and for that we are truly sorry, but it is time that the non-drug using public sees what we are now dealing with on a daily basis. The poison known as heroin has taken a strong grip on many communities not just ours, the difference is we are willing to fight this problem until it's gone and if that means we offend a few people along the way we are prepared to deal with that.
Police responded to a call ar around 3.11pm on Thursday after the Ford Explorer was seen driving erratically before coming to an abrupt stop.
When a police officer approached the vehicle, he noticed the driver, later identified as 47-year-old James Acord, was intoxicated and his head bobbed back and forth with his speech nearly unintelligible.
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Credit: East Liverpool City Police Department
He told the officer he was driving 50-year-old Rhonda Pasek to hospital - she too was slumped over the passenger seat.
As Acord tried to make a getaway, the police officer pulled the keys out of the ignition and noticed the four-year-old child in the back seat.
Paramedics arrived and eventually took the couple to East Liverpool City Hospital.
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Credit: Columbiana County Jail
Acord was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated, endangering children and slowing or stopping in a road.
Pasek was charged with endangering children, public intoxication and not wearing a seatbelt.
The four-year-old child, Pasek's son, has been placed in Columbiana County Children's Services.
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Featured image credit: East Liverpool City Police Department
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