PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland police suspect that a 2-year-old girl's death on Thursday is fentanyl-related, the agency said.
Around 2:30 p.m., police officers responded to a home off Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard after reports that a 2-year-old child was in cardiac arrest. When the officers arrived, fire crews at the scene told them that the girl had been taken to a hospital, where she later died.
The medical examiner is determining the girl's cause of death, which has not yet been released.
Portland police believe that fentanyl is a factor in her death, based on evidence found at the home and conversations with hospital staff. Portland police did not provide any other details about the evidence that was found.
The girl's mother, who is not being publicly identified at this time, left the home during the incident, Portland police said. Detectives have spoken to multiple other adults who knew the girl but want to speak to her mother.
"I want to cry. I want to cry. Because it should not have happened. It should not have happened," neighbor Stacey Haner-Oswald told KGW. "How could you walk away from your child... as they're dying?"
Rick Graves with the Portland Fire and Rescue said this call was especially tough on crews who tried to save the young girl's life.
"We have to do something about this as a community," Graves said, who warned that all drugs hit kids harder than adults. "Fentanyl is 50 times more powerful than black tar heroin... it stops people breathing."
"I am incredibly saddened to hear about the death of this little girl,” said Portland Police Chief Bob Day in a news release Friday. "This tragedy impacts the child’s family, friends, neighbors, the first responders, and our entire community."
The Portland Police Bureau said it's been notified of 210 overdoses since the start of 2024. Of those, five involved children. There were 303 reported overdoses in 2023, and nine of them involved children — "an overwhelming majority" of whom died, Portland police said.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Jason Koenig at Jason.Koenig@police.portlandoregon.gov or 503-823-0889 and reference case number 24-233352.