Legal Question in Criminal Law in Pennsylvania

Re: drug overdose investigation

I am sorry about your friend. The misery from the abuse of legal and illegal drugs is SO tragic. As far as the police, unless they felt your friend was intentionally OD'd by someone, they would not put a lot of effort into trying to figure out who may have been with your friend when he shot up. Even if someone was there, it does not mean that person may have done anything to hasten his death, or even that they abandoned him when he started to die. There is NO duty or law requiring anyone to help someone you see dying. If you are talking about a parent, a doctor, a caretaker for someone, that is different, they DO have a duty to caretake, including calling for medical help. Here, someone could have left after he shot up, thinking he was OK, or they may have paniced and left, and until you have an autopsy, you do not know if he had a heart attack, or had a bad batch of heroin. If the police can not PROVE someone killed or at the VERY least hastened someone's death, they have nothing. The police have so much money to do their work, so they need to try to spend it where they get the most benefit for the time and money expended. I am sorry, but the chances are good that your friend would have died with or without aid. Try to make something positive from your friend's passing - go talk with school kids about what you loved about yoru friend, and about how drugs sucked th e life out of their life, and lead to their death - it CAN happen to anyone!