AUSTIN, Texas – A man was arrested in connection with a spike of opioid overdoses that caused nine deaths in Austin this week.
Johnny Wright, 55, was seen handing narcotics to customers on Monday morning in downtown Austin before police and paramedics responded to multiple overdoses in the area, an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by Fox 7 Austin states.
Recommended Videos
In the affidavit, police said a woman handed the drugs to Wright before he delivered them to customers. They are believed to have dealt drugs to one or more of the people who overdosed, police said.
As of Friday, Wright is charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, as he was found with a handgun and four rounds of ammo when he was detained around 11:30 a.m. on Monday.
He was previously convicted of possession of a controlled substance in the summer of 2023 and was sentenced to 60 days in jail.
Austin police said they identified Wright and the woman as the possible suspects by using footage from HALO, or High Activity Location Observation, cameras in the downtown area.
They were detained on Monday “based on the hand-to-hand transactions,” the affidavit states. Both have a history of narcotics activity and are known by officers as drug dealers, according to police.
The woman has not been arrested as of Friday.
Authorities first responded to a call for an overdose at 9 a.m. Monday at the intersection of East Seventh and Neches streets.
In the next four hours, Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services responded to at least eight suspected overdoses within a few blocks of each other.
At least 65 people required overdose treatment between Monday and Wednesday, ATCEMS spokesman Darren Noak told The Associated Press.
Several people were given Naloxone, otherwise known as Narcan, but at least nine people ended up dying from opioid overdoses.
Preliminary testing showed that all nine people who died had traces of fentanyl in their system and the majority had other drugs present too, Travis County spokesman Hector Nieto told the AP.
‘Deadly batch of illicit narcotics’
Health officials in Austin are calling this week’s incidents the city’s worst overdose outbreak in nearly a decade.
“At this time, it is apparent that there is a deadly batch of illicit narcotics in our community,” Austin Police Department Assistant Chief Eric Fitzgerald said at a news conference Tuesday.
The victims ranged in age from 30s to 50s and spanned diverse ethnic backgrounds, said Keith Pinckard, Travis County’s chief medical examiner.
Fitzgerald said officers administered an overdose-reversing drug, naloxone, at the scene of several cases as they awaited emergency services. He added that citizen bystanders in some cases stepped in to administer the life-saving drug themselves, and thanked them for intervening.
According to Travis County Judge Andy Brown, the county's top elected official, kits for administering overdose antidote drug naloxone during emergency situations were distributed to locals in affected areas and training was provided by emergency personnel for those willing to carry the medication.
Brown said that the drug, which combats overdoses, had previously been proactively distributed across the area through city and county programs that attempt to fight increasing opioid overdoses. He said the efforts are conducted in coordination with local groups that often respond to the overdose crisis.
It is the largest overdose outbreak in Austin since a synthetic drug referred to as K2 was distributed locally in 2015, Brown said.
WATCH: Bexar County Sheriff weighs in after 51 opioid overdose calls in Travis County
Read also: