Pictures taken by a small-town Ohio police department showing a couple allegedly overdosed on heroin in their car, the woman's son ignored in the back, have gone viral on social media.
The images were posted on the Facebook page of the East Liverpool, Ohio Police Department, along with an officer's report of the incident that led to the arrest of James Acord and Rhonda Pasek on child endangerment charges.
"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 police department said in a statement on the Facebook page on Friday.
"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," the department said.
The photos show Acord, 50, and Pasek, 47, passed out in the front seat of their car, their mouths agape, as the child stares silently into the camera from the back.
Officer Kevin Thompson wrote that Acord, whose head was "bobbing back and forth", his speech almost unintelligible, told him he was taking Pasek to the hospital and attempted to drive away before falling completely unconscious.
Pasek was also unconscious and turning blue, the officer wrote.
Both were revived by emergency medical technicians using several rounds of a drug used to reverse an opiate overdose, according to Thompson's report.
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