A routine traffic stop turned into a high speed pursuit in Pennsylvania Friday after a suspected heroin dealer tried to evade police before crashing his car.
Officers with the Pennsylvania State Police arrested 39-year-old Charles Williams in Harrisburg following the chase, finding 303 packets of heroin in his possession, along with an unidentified number of ecstasy pills. Police briefly pulled Williams over at roughly 10 p.m. Friday before he floored the gas and fled the scene, FOX 43 reported.
Williams led police on a high speed chase, flying through multiple stop signs, before crashing into an occupied vehicle and a parked car. He then tried to run, leading to a brief foot pursuit. Williams faces a number of charges, including DUI and eluding police.
The person in the occupied vehicle allegedly suffered injuries from the crash.
Drug overdoses, fueled by heroin and fentanyl, are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Opioid overdose made up a staggering 66 percent of all drug overdose deaths in 2016, surpassing the annual number of lives lost to breast cancer.
The epidemic is contributing to declining life expectancy in the U.S., officials say. Life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2016 for the first time since an outbreak of influenza in 1962 and 1963.
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