On a cool Thursday afternoon in Ottawa, veteran police officer Sgt. Avery Flanagan approaches a man hunched over in a downtown parking lot. He has crushed opioids in one hand and a needle in the other.
Flanagan tells the man, who appears to be in his 20s, he can’t use drugs on private property.
“Have you ever overdosed on fentanyl?” asks the officer.
“Twice or three times,” he responds. “You hit the floor, you wake up, you don’t even know that you’ve overdosed.”
“Pretty scary feeling?” asks Flanagan.
“Yeah, pretty scary,” he answers.
Similar encounters unfolded throughout the day as Global News accompanied the officer during a patrol last November of the city’s downtown, an area where the opioid epidemic and housing crisis are colliding and having deadly consequences.
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Global News
January 20, 2024
