OVER THE RHINE, OH (FOX19) - A mother faces charges after Cincinnati police say she was caught on video shooting up heroin in an alley as her small son looked on.
Lauren Story, 29, of Green Township is seen in the video injecting the drug with a syringe along with a male friend. Her son sat in front of them, playing with a smartphone.
John Donaldson of Grant Park Block Watch filmed the video in an alley off Vine Street near the park Wednesday afternoon.
“I saw the little boy sitting there against the wall really behaving himself while the two were preparing to shoot up,” Donaldson said.
“I think the people [who live here] are solid people. The people that are the problem are the people that come down here and sell their dope and the people that come down here and buy their dope.”
Police saw his video and arrested Story on Thursday. An officer spotted her and her son outside the Hamilton County Courthouse in downtown Cincinnati.
Police said they found four syringes in her purse when they took her into custody.
She is held on $22,000 bond at the county jail on charges of child endangering and possession of drug paraphernalia and drug abuse instruments. She can pay 10 percent and be released.
Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge Tyrone Yates said he would let her forgo the bond and release her if she agreed to be placed on house arrest. He also ordered her into drug treatment and said she could not be around her son unless county child caseworkers approve it.
The case goes to a Hamilton County grand jury for possible indictment Aug. 14.
Meanwhile, the man who shot the stunning video that is going viral wants federal officials to intervene.
“I think this problem is bigger than Cincinnati,” Donaldson said. “I do think that we need President Trump to declare this a national emergency and put funding and process in place to get these people off the street.”
Donaldson said drugs have brought other issues into the Grant Park neighborhood. The block watch formed just months ago, after he and other residents counted 9 shootings and four shooting deaths in that area just this year alone.
Cincinnati police reported a spike in drug overdoses Wednesday after two of their officers were taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center when they became exposed to an unknown substance while on the job.
The police union president has said authorities suspect the substance is the deadly carfentanil or fentanyl.
