Local and federal law enforcement officials in Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties on Thursday, Jan. 26, announced they have partnered on a public outreach campaign to help combat the deadly fentanyl epidemic.
During a news conference in Riverside, Martin Estrada, assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District, which includes San Bernardino and Riverside counties, was joined by District Attorney Mike Hestrin and San Bernardino County Assistant District Attorney Simon Umscheid, among others, to launch the new campaign, called “Death in Disguise.”
The campaign, which expands on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s “One Pill Can Kill” campaign, includes the release of a new public service announcement and an engagement program targeting schools and community groups across Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
“Simply put, fentanyl is a deadly drug. It’s devastating our communities, it’s devastating our county,” Hestrin said.
Outreach efforts
Thursday’s announcement underscored more than a year’s worth of outreach efforts by Southern California law enforcement agencies to raise the alarm on a drug that is spreading like a cancer across the nation, becoming the No. 1 killer of adults in the 18 to 45 age range.
In 2021, prosecutors from the Riverside County District’s Attorney’s crime prevention unit began making attention-grabbing presentations at schools countywide, targeting mainly high school students, Hestrin said.
“At the end of each presentation, we always have a parent come up to our presenters and share with them that they have lost a son or daughter to fentanyl poisoning,” he said. Thus far, Hestrin said, more than 90 presentations have been conducted, reaching nearly 12,000 students and community members.
In 2022, San Bernardino County declared fentanyl a public health emergency and the District Attorney’s Office launched its Act Now awareness campaign on its website, as well as hosting presentations in public schools, Umscheid said.
All in attendance Thursday stressed the importance of education and public awareness in an effort to reduce fentanyl poisonings and reverse the epidemic’s alarming trajectory.
“It is imperative that we educate the public, generally, but also our youth,” Estrada said. “Many of these fentanyl poisonings occur because someone thought they were buying a different type of drug, or pharmaceutical, and instead got something laced with fentanyl that resulted in death.”
Death toll
The death toll from fentanyl, a cheap synthetic opiate, continues to increase annually in staggering numbers. Only 2 milligrams of the drug — which is used to spike pills, cocaine and other drugs, usually unknowingly to either habitual or recreational drug users — can be lethal.
Pure fentanyl pills are typically blue in color and go by the name “M-30s.”
In the U.S. in 2021, Estrada said, more than 71,000 people died from fentanyl poisoning.
“We don’t have the numbers yet for 2022, but we expect it to be just as great,” he said. In the past three years, the number of fentanyl deaths that have occurred in the seven-county area served by his office has quadrupled.
And in the Inland Empire, fentanyl has wreaked “widespread destruction and death,” Estrada said.
“In Riverside County alone, more than 400 people died as a result of fentanyl poisonings in 2021,” Estrada said. “And in San Bernardino County, over 300 people died as a result of fentanyl poisoning.”
Bill Bodner, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Los Angeles Division, said his office seized more than 7 million fentanyl pills and more than 1,000 pounds of fentanyl powder in 2022.
In the Inland Empire in 2022, fentanyl-related deaths spiked 38% over the previous year, from 537 in 2020 to 742 in 2021. Statistics for 2022 are not yet available.
Additionally, more than 9,700 Inland Empire residents suffered from fentanyl poisoning in 2021 but survived, Bodner said at the news conference.
Federal prosecutions
Hestrin said he has assigned one of his prosecutors to be cross-sworn as a special assistant U.S. attorney assigned to prosecute Riverside County cases in federal court. The prosecutions will focus on violent felons who possess or traffic in firearms and “dangerous drug dealers” who traffic fentanyl.
At the local level, Hestrin said, his office has filed 20 homicide cases and charged 21 defendants with fentanyl-related murder. His office has received attention from other law enforcement agencies statewide for its aggressive stance against fentanyl dealers.
To those who say harsher penalties for fentanyl will not save lives, they’re “simply wrong,” Hestrin said.
“The data and plain common sense tells us that criminal justice policies have an enormous effect on the choices and behavior or those who are criminally minded,” Hestrin said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has assembled its Overdose Justice Task Force tailored to investigate and build fentanyl cases for prosecution. In the past few years, Estrada said, his office has prosecuted 51 cases districtwide against defendants who distributed fentanyl resulting in death or serious injury.
Under federal law, a mandatory 20-year sentence can be imposed for defendants convicted of such crimes.
In the last year-and-a-half, Estrada’s office has filed seven such cases stemming from Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
More recently, on Nov. 16, 2022, Estrada’s office indicted 36-year-old Jason Gray Saha for allegedly selling fentanyl-spiked cocaine to five people after a night out in a bar. Four of the people died after using the drugs and the fifth was severely injured, Estrada said. Saha has an Oct. 17, 2023, trial date and, if convicted, will face a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Two of the people Saha stands accused of killing are Jessica Filson, 29, and her boyfriend, Nicholas Castillo, 30, both who were found dead by Filson’s mother in their Redlands home on Jan. 22, 2020. The other two died the following day in San Bernardino.
Blessing born of tragedy
Filson’s father, retired San Bernardino police Sgt. Steve Filson, was a guest speaker at Thursday’s news conference. He is the founder of Victims of Illicit Drugs, or VOID, and has become a staunch advocate in raising public awareness on the dangers of fentanyl.
“The product they purchased, unknown to them, contained fentanyl. They partied and didn’t wake up,” Filson said of his daughter and Castillo. “The effects of her death will linger forever.”
Jessica Filson was the mother of a 3-year-old daughter at the time of her death. Steve and Cherie Filson are now raising their granddaughter.
“A blessing born of tragedy is the miracle of our precious granddaughter Elara. She is now 6 years old and is with us and, thankfully, monopolizes our lives, permitting us to move forward,” Filson said. “We try to look at it in a way in which we can either immerse ourselves in grief, or we can choose to move in a manner that provides a meaningful legacy in which the circumstances of their deaths can save lives.”