Fentanyl: An Urgent Warning For All

is everywhere middle schools, concert parties. We went back to my voice, the four of us, and we were doing some coke there. Who was my friend? See this is the part that's hard to talk about for me. Three of your friends died. What is fentanyl? A hospital grade painkiller now turned into a deadly poison laced into drugs like marijuana, cocaine, xanax, and perkison. It's like playing Russian roulette. It's cheap to make an incrediblely addictive It's invisible, odorless,

and you can't taste it. It took one pell and it took her off the face of planet forever. It was grains of sand worth of fentanyl. Fentnyl is now the number one killer of adults stages eighteen to forty five. The scariest part people have no idea they're taking it. The life saving Red Table every family must watch. I would be dead, There's no question in my mind about that. We have to get focus. We are doing fentanyl. This is gonna be a good show. Yeah, I need you

and your siblings to pay attention. Mom. Let me ask you a question while you were using If you knew this was on the street at the time and people were dying, do you think that would have helped you stop? No? Absolutely not really. I'm so glad that it wasn't because I've o d before. I would definitely be dead that. There's no question in my mind about that. Right On September six, five time Emmy nominated actor and producer Michael

Kay Williams was found dead from fent nol. Michael rose to fame playing Omar Little, one of the most memorable characters from HBO's iconic series The Wire. I ave never put mink on on Nobody who wasn't in the game. Critics called this performance a groundbreaking portrayal of black masculinity on television. By age nineteen, Michael's battling a raging drug and alcohol addiction. On his twenty fifth birthday, he was brutally attacked with a razor blade, resulting in the scar

many say defined his career. Michael spent years in and out of rehab. There was some turbulence in my young adult life. I'm recovering addict. Yeah, I mean drugs was on my way of coping with the pain. Last September he relapsed and ingested heroine he did not know was laced with a deadly amount of ventnyl. Just weeks ago, for men were arrested and charged in Michael's death. Michael's nephew, Dominic, was the one who discovered his body. He's telling his

story for the first time. We're really glad to have you here. Thank you. I think a lot of what happened, what I saw in September six, I'm still processing. Michael was an amazing human being. What was going on the day that you found your uncle? I was shopping what my wife. Mike had some work to do the next day and had reached out to him the night before, and I was concerned that I had not heard from him.

We made the decision. You go to his house. And I went upstairs, opened up his door and it was quiet. My always played music. That wasn't the case. I stuck my head and I said, uncle, Mike, are you in here? And I observed him deceased. Immediately called nine on one. They said, listen, you know, do you want to start some compressions? And I said, I'm telling you, he's deceased. He's gone, he's cold. I spoke to Michael's publician. She said, Dominic, you know this is going to be on the news

in like another hour, I'm telling you. And I looked out as window and I saw all the reporters, and you know, I thought about, you know, the responsibility and my responsibility, my accountability to get the word out about how this doesn't have to be you or your loved one. Had he shown any signs before then, whoever relapsed, Mike was doing well, he was working on a book. It did not appear to me that Mike was sliding back into addiction. I've been home for year. Is are served

a long time in prison. Michael and his nephew were always close. When nineteen year old Dominic was convicted of murder, Michael remained his mentor. Dominic shot and killed a man while defending his twin brother, Nolan in a fight. He was sentenced to twenty five years in prison. Could you or would you have handled the situation differently? I laid on at night in that cage and I say to myself,

what happened? Would you go wrong? Dominick was granted clemency based on his leadership and positive impact on the prison system. He ended up serving twenty years twenty years seven days, and the four and a half years that I had been home, Mike didn't appear to be overwhelmed or dealing with any major issues. But Michael also worked really hard not to have the things that he was going through way on other people. And he was an actor, right and you can you know, you can fool people, you

can convince people that you're okay. But what I would say is this, I'm positive that he would not have knowingly taken fentinng that I know that, like I know my first name, why was it important for you to come today? Fentinol finding its way into our communities is the reason why I know Michael would want me here. A huge part of what my life entails now is

honoring his legacy. You know, we were young black men coming up in a really rough neighborhood and East Flatbush, and Michael believed we don't sit back and just look at things fall apart and just and just become complacent. And if we do, we're complicit. We have to work hard to make people aware about what's happening so that other people don't have to feel the type of pain that I felt. Yeah, my understanding is that you're actually

living with Michael's mother. She's an amazing human being. She's ninety four years old, and her grit, her strength, you know, I see what Michael got it from. She is just amazing. It makes this process of grieving just a little bit more tolerable. Yeah, now, I know Michael had a long, long history struggling with substance abuse. From a young age. He struggled and h I'll never forget. I was about

six or seven years old. This is right before his first rehab and he came to my house early in the morning and it was a little argument that ensued because her substance abuseing. You know, family is you know, a little fed up. Michael looked me, right, my eyes and he said, Dominic, get me. Don't you ever ever ever? You strugs, and then he put his hands on my face. I could feel his breath and he said, do you

hear me ever? Ever? Ever? And when I was in prison and felt like insanity was creeping in on me, I would hear that conversation. One of the things I try to live by is this mantra that I have that you know, setback is a set up for a comeback. The history of how people is about coming back. Is

there anything else you want to share? I want to say thank you so much for just letting people know that there's no one on this planet that's perfect to use these conversations so that other people can figure things out.

That to me is so important. At the work that you guys are doing here not alread table talk, people are gonna be listening, They're gonna be watching, They're gonna be saying to themselves, if this can happen to an amazing human being like him, it can happen to me, and if we can prevent that, then we're doing the right thing. That was nice, sad for my soul. Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you. This headline making tragedy is a terrifying warning. Last September, comedian Kate quickly met up with

three friends after performing at a comedy club. Like Kate, two of them were stables on the l a comedy scene. Enrico Colan, Jelly Fu, Kwan Johnson, and his friend Natalie Williamson the foreign Jestic cocaine, but did not know it was laced with fentanyl. Kate passed out and was unconscious for seventeen hours. She woke up disoriented, unable to move her legs, and made a grisly discovery her friends Food, Rico, and Natalie were dead. Okate is here to share her

story for the first time. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you guys so much. So what do you remember about that night? Oh man, that night was so crazy. First of all, I'm so horrified people died, and I was nervous to come here because you feel shame about something like this, you know, yeah, sure, but I'm so great won't have a chance to talk about it. The hardest part for me is okay, Well, Food was my friend Rico I knew, and Natalie had just met.

I wish I knew more about now. She was so nice. I just met her that night. She was hanging with food. Food was the best. She's so real, So I love the best. Froom love that name. He was awesome. This is my friend f Quan. I said, we've met forty five times. He says we've met approximately one thousand times. I think it's more like that. That's why I loved him so much. So I did a show. I saw Food there. I saw Rico with the club too. We went back to my place, the four of us, and

we were doing some coke there. I mean after a comedy show. Honestly, like occasionally that's like I kind of a normal night, right, It's not like it was a crazy night. I always like, I like to do it for fun, but I was always a baby about it, honestly, like I'm the one that does like the quarter of what everyone does, which is where I lived. I did like teeny bit of a line and then um, I went to the bathroom and what's wild is on the way out of the bathroom, I couldn't even butt my pants.

I was already that disoriented, right, and I said, something's not right about this. I don't feel well. I knew something was wrong right away. I felt nauseous. I sat down and that's the last thing I remember, and I passed out in this chair and Rico was sitting across from me in the room, so I heard me to talk about that it's okay, but anyway, and I passed out on a chair like sideways. And when I passed out, my legs stayed in this chair. My head hit the floor.

So anyway, that was like six am, and it was like the morning, morning, and I woke up and it was dark, and it was like a loving at night or something. Yeah, and the first thing I thought, I swear to God, is oh my God, why is it dark? My doors are open? All I saw is Rico. Yeah. I was just so confused. I come through my legs, but I thought like they were asleep. I went to stand, and that's when I really realized, and I started to get scared. I started saying, hey, Rico, Rico, I thought

he fell asleep. He even still had like the guitar, he was holding guitars in his hands. It never crossed my mind he was dead because he didn't look dead. I couldn't see food and Natalie because my head was on the floor and they were up on a couch around the corner, and so I called my uncle. I still thought Rico was okay until I threw a shoe at the door next day and it didn't wake up.

I started to panic, and then like two minutes later, my uncle walked in and immediately walked over and he touched him and he was cold, and he called and I won one. Right. The rest was I mean, see, this is the part that's hard to talk about for me. It was horrifically. Three of your friends died. Yeah, it was hard when the paramedics came and they were like, are you into hanging out with dead people? Is that your thing? You like partying with corpses? That's what you

and your friends do. You like dead bodies. But I don't want to sound like what was me And the rest of the night was brutal on me, But that's like my own fault, you know what I mean. I had total kidney failure, three ruptured disks in my bag, three ruptured discs because you and also they're not very nice to at the hospital when they think you're a junkie. They're not kind. You almost feel like the only people that understand other people have died and then they're gone.

I felt guilty like I didn't do more, but then I know I couldn't. I've just been having a hard time with like not feeling I have to defend myself totally. When did you learn from this experience? Just everything I thought matter, doesn't you know? Because during this business, when things get real tough, there's not many people that stand up for you, and those people are all you need. And it's like money and all the things you just think make you happy, but and and like, it really

makes no difference because in a minute, it's gone. It's gone, Like that night we're laughing. In thirty seconds later, it's over, and it just changes you. And for me, like drugs was never an issue as much. For me, it was always a party thing. So my whole career people hated on me, but the trolls and all the haters it never got to me. But it did with this. As tributes and high profile condolence is poured in vicious finger pointing began on the comedy circuit and in social media comments,

Kate became a pariah. She says she has been repeatedly blamed for the deaths of food, Rico and Natalie. Some have gone as far as accusing Kate of killing three people. It's different to be called a murderer and stuff. People would say to me like that's my friend. It was very not about image and all this Hollywood stuff. It was just like real, I feel like he's with me sometimes. I feel him around my house. I swear to God, like when I'm having a hard time, I feel that sometimes.

So that's been helpful. Yeah, I have felt so isolated at times in this and so like no one can understand. So what has been a coping mechanism? My therapist giving this tip, Sit down and write a note to yourself from your soul, like your soul doesn't judge you, like your soul wants to be proud of you, and then right back and forth. And I never spent time alone with my thoughts like that because it terrifies me. So like when I am having trouble now or I beat

myself up, I'll do that. I'll sit and do that. It really helps totally give me an example of how you beat yourself up. I know I've been trying to figure out how to deal with the PTSD stuff. I definitely have had trouble controlling, some rage, and some parts of this where I've sent some texts that I wish I hadn't or mashed out at people in a way

that's not something I would have ever done. Before I moved into a new apartment and for like three weeks just stay at home, barely showered, didn't leave my house. I just I just pride so hard. I don't know anyone else who lived through this. To be honest, it's terrifying. But I'm like, maybe I live to talk about this because people messed up. Man, It's okay to start from the bottom and you know, kind of dig out. I

don't know, to be careful with your drugs. I mean, I still don't know where the guy got it, just like that, from wanting to have a good time to your life turning into a nightmare for a minute. The thing about this that I really think is important. I think there's this misconception they think people are trying to buy a fentyl or and it's not that it's poison. Du So you want people to know that you don't know when you buyin exactly. So it's not like you

were like, hey, let's go out and get some. I mean, it's like, hey, this is we've done lines of cocaine before, and it's not like you overdid it and you didn't know that it was even and you don't know what's in there. Yeah, is there anything else that you might want to say? I have gotten reached out to buy tons of people who have lost loved ones from the tons kids. But like for the people that have reached that, I'm so it helps. Every positive message helps. I really

really mean that, and I'm grateful, really grateful. I haven't gotten to speak to like um, the parents of food or natal I will be happy to. I think you gaining the courage and the strength to share your testimony is really powerful important because what you've been through is heavy. Your testimony can literally save a life. Yeah, you know, I hope. So I'm still a mess, and you know, I mean I'm the definitely don't want to ask it sounds like I've got it together by any means. I don't.

But it's one day at a time. I mean, like that night, I wish it didn't happen that way, but I can't fix it. All you can do is try to move forward and do better. Thank you guys, Olivia Green's mother has barely left the house since her daughter's death. Just over a year ago, she agreed to fly across the country in hopes of saving another child's life. This is Olivia Story. Fifteen year old Olivia Green was a creative and fun loving teen with an infectious sense of humor.

She loved to dance, make silly videos, then go to camp every summer. She dreamed of being a marine biologist. Hello mother's birthday. Olivia had three siblings and was best friends with her younger brother, Jet, who was on the autism spectrum. Last April, the night before Easter, Olivia told her mom she was having a sleepover with a friend and ended up meeting an eighteen year old male she was chatting with online. He gave her a painkiller that

was unknowingly laced with fentinel. Soon after, Olivia was dead. M hmm, thank you so much for having me. It's very hard. I know, this is really it's very fresh. I mean, this is last you never get over. Yeah,

can you tell us what happened? Yeah, it was Easter and my cell phone ring and it was four in the morning, and it was the hospital and they asked to speak to the mother of Olivia Green, and I was like, this is her because Olivia, Okay, can you just tell me so I'm not going to panic on wait and they said you can't talk about that over the phone. So I just went in the clothes that

I was sleeping in and rushed straight there. I told the triage on the mother of Olivia Green, and she just got about her booth and went straight to the back and then she told the security to come stand next me. So now I'm really worried, like did Olivia do something bad? Then their emergency room doors open and like eight ten doctors came out. They pulled me into this little room and I was like, um, there's Olivia. Okay. They just put their heads down and they shook their

head and they said, no, We're sorry. We tried lit'sten sooner confused what happened to Olivia. They just said fencing overdose. I'm like founting all overdose. I never heard the word friends and no before my I know the word overdose means you abused drugs. Right, We're not talking about the same Olivia. My Olivia is a little girl, thank goodness. And um they asked me to very find my name and her birthday, and they said it that's the right Olivia. Yeah, I just started screap, so I was I need to

say her right now. Yeah, I didn't think it's yeah, she doesn't use trucks. So they took me to the back and Olivia had a white sheet over and all I saw was her life. The same was dangling off the bed, right, So I didn't want to go near the body because I didn't want it to really beat my out of you. And I was waiting for family to shop so I can be with me. Crime scene walks in and I said, sorry for you loss, we

need to take pictures like crime scene. So I just seen him take the white sheet offer her and it was cheese. It was really my Olivia was so confused. She was completely naked and nobody't know anything. Where did you think she went that night? But she supposed to stay at her best friend's house and she lied to me and went somewhere else. Right, She went to go see a guy right who was an adult because like nine tune, she was a little girl. And this is

someone that she met online. I think they met on snapcher having an idea, and detective said she barely know, like they just met. So the detective was able to talk to the guy that she went to see because he can call the police, right, but he didn't call for help right away. Do they know what drug he gave? It was a percoset. He was a percose of fendonose. What killed her? It never made the media. A little

girl dropped dead and nobody thinks this is important. When she died, it's it's almost like they looked at her like she was a drunk at it, like her life meant nothing. And I don't use the word overtox. Overdose implies that you knowingly and carelessly took too much of something. Right, Olivia took one pill and it took her off the face of the planet forever. She didn't overdose. It was grains of sand worth of fentonyl that killed. She was

poisoned to death. Right, So it looks like Olivia's father, Bruce, is going to join us by zoom. Hello Bruce, thank you, thank you for having me. What is it that you would like us to know about Olivia? I beg God, I mean I beg God for a little girl. He bless me with Olivia and then fifteen years later, she's gone, Yeah. It's not one of the roughest things a parent will ever deal with. It is the roughest thing a parent

will ever deal with. Absolutely, the initial drug dealer that puts the fetanol inside of all of the percocets and everything else, he's a murderer. I mean, he knows the fetanol is killing everybody, and you're sticking it in weed, is stinking in everything that you can possibly find so you can make an extra dollar. Exactly what happened to the man who gave Olivia the drug? So he made the ninth one one call. And there's a law called good Samarratan, So he was the hitro in New York City.

As long as you call the police, you don't get charged. Inside this law, there's no stipulation of times. So if he sits back and he gives Olivia a pill at twelve o'clock and doesn't decide to call the ambulance until four o'clock in the morning, he's still safe. Wow, and she was a minor, it was an adult, she was naked. It doesn't matter. So Olivia will never get true. I'm so sorry that we have to live with the fact

that this guy still walks around in the streets. Yeah, but heard a voicemail from the guy because I went on social media asking people out help me find out who did this, and somebody found out who he was and they told him to turn himself in, and he sent a voice clip saying what happened, And he said he gave Olivia percocet. She wasn't high enough, so I

gave her more. This is obviously an illegal percocet because percocet does not have fanonough from this purposely being laced to get you, I understanding is that you can just get this stuff off the internet now and put put in the emoji and a list of drug deals will pop up. What you order a percoset off Snapchat and they deliberate right to your door the same day. So parents are finding their children dead at the computer. You know it's twelve thirteen, fourteen year old children t right

because they don't know a naive. Well. Dr Melissa Clark is a Harvard educated emergency room physician who has some answers for us. Hello, thank you for joining us. Hello everyone. Well, let's start with what is fentinelle? So it has multiple uses within medicine. It's for any severe pain associated with surgery, pain from cancer therapy. It belongs to that family of opioids. So you mentioned percoset also in that family as heroin is morphine, but fifty times more potent than heroin and

a hundred times more potent than morphine. We have some photos of fentanyl. WHOA, yeah, so that amount can kill you. Yes, that can. And the problem is fentanyl is odorless, it doesn't have a taste. There's no way that somebody could actually know if it's in a counterfeit percocet pill. When people make these counterfeit OXYCODEA on and adderall pills, it might be in one pill but not be in the other pill. So there's absolutely no way to know. It's

really almost like playing Russian roulette. So recreational users should have their antenna's up. I know they're they're talking about these strips that you can get that that will test the drugs, but it's such a small amount. Is it really going to pick up on that. The fentanyl test strips that you're talking about are effective. Originally created to detect fentanyl in urine, fentanyl test strips are now used to check rugs for this deadly substance. The strips are

easy to use and available in about half the country. However, according to the d e A, because no test is accurate, the only way to be sure drug does not contain fentanyl is to buy it from a pharmacy with a prescription. It's one of the things that I'd say, if you're using drugs recreationally or if you have addiction, you should use these strips because fentanyl is everywhere and it's unpredictable. How fast acting is the fentanyl? How quickly will it

kill you? When you ingest any opioid and needs. Initially you get that sense of euphoria, but then your drive to breathe is going to go down or stop breathing, and that's actually what kills you. Fentanyl can do that within a matter of ten minutes or so. So the body gets so relaxed that you stop exactly and so basically just go to sleep. And so that would be the same thing that happened to Olivia. Yes, unfortunately, so right.

I know, the old school way of parenting is like kind of keep information away from your children, but I think in this day and age, we have to be the ones educating our children around these kinds of topics. So you can't be mad at me. Will know when I'm talking to you, I don't get mad at you. This is the thing. I think the awareness is the most important part. A lot of my friends have experimented and it's it's what you do when you're young, but this is you just don't want to play that game.

When I was growing up, I lied to my parents about everything. I lied to you, and it really knew where I was. I told her I was all That's why I relate. I told my mother I was all kinds of places. I can definitely relate to what happened. Do you think your child is one place and she's someplace totally different? Frand I did that all the time. But sometimes you can have a great relationship with your parents,

and it's not really about that. It's just about as a young person feeling like there's certain things that you want to do that you don't think was acceptable for your parents. Totally okay. So I just wanted to ask you and Bruce both how has olivia story saved lives. I didn't know popping pills was a thing for kids. I shared a real graphic post one day to reach as many kids as I can before it's too late

for them. And a lot of kids were messaging me, like thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen year old children telling me that they already addicted to pills and that was a wake up call for them. They're not going to mess with pills no more because they didn't want to put their mother through what they saw my post. I even had Snoop Dogg's daughter. She shared olivia story and said that was the wake up call for wow. And this is one of the videos in the hospital the night

that Olivia past. I love you, Olivia, I love you so much, bigger girl. Hello, please come to me my dream. Please, please let me know your stiff here. Please. That's the only way I'm gonna say yeah, yeah, and in your heart. Yeah. I still kids, except that she's gone from a pill. I wish it was from natural causes, even a car accident. What if I'm easier from two deal with. My father is a preacher and I grew up in the church, and after this, I just lost my faith. To have

it taken from you over a pill. I'm trying my best to get back into the faith. But how do you I'm lost, lost, I totally understand, I really do. No. Thank you so much. This was a real education for me today. Thank you, Thank you Bruce for joining us. Yeah, thank you, Bruce, and thank you, thank you. You're welcome. In the past year, almost seventy thousand Americans of every age and background have died from fentanyl. We honor their

lives by speaking their names. Olivia Green, Fukuwan Johnson, Enrico Colon Jelly, Natalie Williamson, Michael Kay Williams gone too soon because of fentanyl. For some, it was their first time, like twenty two year old Cassandra Saldivar. Twenty one year old Lexei Alaj, a Minnesota singer and a rapper, was on a steady rise to start them. Frankita Davis dreamed of being a dental hygienist. Thirteen year old Luca Manuel

loved blasting Prince in his mom's car. Alexander Neville Alyssa, Norman Luke right, Sixteen year old Logan Williams starting the flash. His mom said he had an infectious spirit. Angelina Rodgers, Shanina Mowitt, Geo Perkins, Hamid ab Aljibar was a community leader in Milwaukee. Twenty two year old Charlie Turning was in love and planning his future. Jessica Philson left behind her three year old daughter, a Laura o were loved by family and friends. To join the Red Table Talk

family and become a part of the conversation. Follow us at Facebook dot com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook, Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.