Another startling photo of a parent strung out on heroin has been released by police in the Midwest, this time showing an Indiana mother sprawled out behind the wheel of her car — syringe still in hand — while her baby is crying in the backseat.
“This is becoming a new norm for drug users,” Marshal Matthew Tallent told the Indianapolis Star.
“Parents are doing this more often with children in the car because they are doing it away from someone who is going to disapprove.”
In the picture, 25-year-old Erika Hurt, of Hope, Ind., can be seen passed out in her car from an alleged overdose on heroin.
Cops said they found her in the parking lot of a Dollar General on Saturday afternoon — slumped back behind the wheel — while her 10-month-old son was crying in the backseat.
She had to be revived with the opioid antidote naloxone before she was transported to a hospital, where she was arrested for child neglect and possession of drug paraphernalia.
“It’s shocking,” Hope Police Chief Matt Tallent told local NBC affiliate WTHR-TV.
“When you look at something like that you see your own children,” he said. “Or, the officer that was here has grandchildren that age, and he said, ‘the first thing I thought of was what if that was my grandchild in that car.'”
Police officials said the picture of Hurt is ultimately meant to drive home the heroin epidemic in the Midwest.
“My intention with these photos is not to shame the mother, although I realize it may appear embarrassing,” Tallent said in another interview with Fox 59. “I honestly think this picture should be used as an educational tool because I want people to see what this drug is doing.”
It’s the second such photo to be released by cops in the Midwest since September, with the first coming out of a small city in Ohio.
In that picture, a 4-year-old boy can be seen sitting silently in his car seat while his grandmother and one of her pals are passed out in the front seat, victims of an apparent overdose.
“We feel it necessary to show the other side of this horrible drug,” officials wrote in the caption of the photo. “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 this story can convince another user to think twice about injecting this poison while having a child in their custody.”
This is just the latest example of this disturbing trend: