OLATHE, Kan. — A Grandview man is charged with distributing drugs that caused the death of a Johnson County teenager.
Prosecutors charged 27-year-old Cameron Bryant in connection with the death of 18-year-old Olivia Piotrowski.
Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe talked to FOX4 Friday.
“Just like most of these cases that we’re dealing with, it’s a fentanyl situation,” he said.
“The vast majority of people who are buying these what we call M-30s, which are just tablets, which they then crush up and snort, most of them are aware that it’s probably fentanyl. They don’t ask that question, but many times they know that that’s what they’re ingesting.”
According to Piotrowski’s obituary, she was a senior at Shawnee Mission East High School when she died on September 16, 2021.
Howe said fentanyl overdoses are blowing up across the Kansas City metro. In Johnson County alone, Howe said 79 deaths were attributed to opioids last year, and there were more than 500 Narcan deployments.
“Of those 500, what’s even scarier is over 50 of those deployments occurred in our local schools,” he continued.
“I know there are campaigns, but I would ask parents [to] talk to their kids. They need to talk to them about ‘Don’t take a pill from a friend or an associate in school who says it may make you feel better,’ because it could lead to your death.”
Bryant is also charged with six counts of use of a communication facility during a drug felony. Court documents further detailing the allegations against Bryant were not immediately available.
He made his first court appearance on the charges Thursday afternoon.