Former Chicago Police officers whose kids died of overdoses spur policy to investigate some drug deaths as homicides
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Having been pushed by families who lost their loved ones to drugs, Chicago Police are now getting trained to investigate drug-related deaths as homicides.
As CBS 2's Marissa Perlman reported Thursday night, two former CPD officers helped inspire that change. The former officers – Terry Almanza and John Roberts – are among the hundreds of parents in the Chicago area whose kids have died from a lethal dose of drugs.
"My daughter was 18 years old," said Terry Almanza. "She didn't know what she was doing."
Almanza's daughter, Sydney, died after an overdose at a party in 2015.
"How did drugs sneak into my house and steal my youngest child and kill him?" said Roberts.
Roberts' son, Billy, died of a heroin overdose in 2009.
"This stuff is pure poison," Roberts said.
For years, Almanza and Roberts have demanded change, calling on prosecutors – and their own former police department – to treat drug deaths as homicides, and go after the people who sold their kids drugs.
Finally, as of late December, the Chicago Police Department approved its first-ever policy for officers to investigate drug deaths under what state law calls "drug-induced homicides."
"I'm just speechless," Almanza said. "It's been a long road; a difficult road, but one I just refused to retreat on."
Since Almanza's daughter's death in 2015, there have been more than 6,000 opioid-related deaths in Chicago alone.
Last year, more than 1,600 people died from opioid poisoning in Cook County.
But it is believed the number of convictions that brought homicide charges against the sellers is in the single digits.
"It's such a hard charge to prove," Roberts said. "They didn't know how to proceed with an investigation."
The new policy looks to focus on collecting evidence at the scene – cellphones, drug paraphernalia – and dig into the victims' social media for intel on the seller.
It seems simple, but it also simply wasn't done before now.
"Many, many families – thousands every year – were being told: 'There's nothing we can do for you. Your child's dead, but there's nothing we can do,'" Roberts said. "That's wrong."
They know putting a drug dealer behind bars won't bring their own kids back, but Almanza and Roberts both say it could save other lives.
"There's no happy ending for our families, but these cases warrant some answers," Almanza said. "These parents deserve those answers."
Both Almanza and Roberts say if Chicago Police can start the training they have in mind, neighboring departments across Cook County can adopt a training policy too.
In Almanza's case, after pushing police to investigate after closing her daughter's case, both of the drug dealers were arrested. One is now spending six years in prison.
In Roberts' case, the person who gave his son lethal heroin has never been caught. But he says he is now fighting for other families in honor of Billy.