nick
April 16th, 2010, 04:01 AM
An eight-year-old boy handed out bags of heroin stamped with the words "trust me" to his classmates after bringing 78 bags of the drug to his school.
Pennsylvania police officers said some of the bags were found opened in the classroom's rubbish bin but they believe none of the children ingested any of their contents.
The boy, a pupil at Turner Elementary School in Wilkinsburg, near Pittsburgh, was found with 60 bags on his person after a teacher noticed him fiddling with the contents of his pockets and asked him what he had.
Ophelia Coleman, the chief of Wilkinsburg police, said at least one classmate was given a bag and later put it in the classroom bin, where 17 more bags were found.
Police said each bag of heroin had an estimated street value of $10 (£6) and held such a small amount of drugs that it could have spilled on to the floor without being noticed.
School officials said parents of children who might have sampled the heroin have been warned to watch out for signs of illness.
Chief Coleman said several suspects faced criminal charges but not the boy, who is too young. She said he could not have understood what he was doing and was simply copying the behaviour of people close to him.
"It's a sad day where you have this type of situation occur, where an eight-year-old child would have his hands on this much illegal narcotics," she said.
"If you live in an environment where that's what you see, you start emulating and imitating, and that's what kids do unfortunately."
Source here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7594678/Eight-year-old-boy-hands-out-bags-of-heroin-to-classmates.html)
Pennsylvania police officers said some of the bags were found opened in the classroom's rubbish bin but they believe none of the children ingested any of their contents.
The boy, a pupil at Turner Elementary School in Wilkinsburg, near Pittsburgh, was found with 60 bags on his person after a teacher noticed him fiddling with the contents of his pockets and asked him what he had.
Ophelia Coleman, the chief of Wilkinsburg police, said at least one classmate was given a bag and later put it in the classroom bin, where 17 more bags were found.
Police said each bag of heroin had an estimated street value of $10 (£6) and held such a small amount of drugs that it could have spilled on to the floor without being noticed.
School officials said parents of children who might have sampled the heroin have been warned to watch out for signs of illness.
Chief Coleman said several suspects faced criminal charges but not the boy, who is too young. She said he could not have understood what he was doing and was simply copying the behaviour of people close to him.
"It's a sad day where you have this type of situation occur, where an eight-year-old child would have his hands on this much illegal narcotics," she said.
"If you live in an environment where that's what you see, you start emulating and imitating, and that's what kids do unfortunately."
Source here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7594678/Eight-year-old-boy-hands-out-bags-of-heroin-to-classmates.html)