General Script
There are still no charges in the Muncie Police Department investigation into the cocaine overdose in the Village Promenade last Friday.
Sergeant Seth Stanley, who leads the criminal investigations department said they are waiting on cooperation from all of the witnesses.
“There are inconsistencies in the stories so we have to make sure we know our facts before we move forward,” he said.
He said there were additional people in the apartment who were witnesses, but police are unsure if others were there and left before police arrived.
Detectives were able to view the security footage from Village Promenade earlier this week.
Stanley clarified that some of the people who overdosed last Friday are Ball State students, but he could not say for sure if all five who overdosed are students.
Earlier this week
Charges have not been filed in the investigation of five people who overdosed on cocaine Friday, Muncie Police Department detectives said.
Sergeant Seth Stanley, who leads the criminal investigations unit, said MPD is still investigating the March 20 incident in which five people were taken to the hospital. University spokeswoman Joan Todd said Friday the five are Ball State students, but MPD has not released names.
MPD detectives have not decided if charges will be filed because they haven’t completed all of the interviews. Detectives still need to watch video footage from the Village Promenade.
The detectives will meet with the Delaware County Prosecutor’s office in the upcoming week to determine if charges will be filed.
MPD took some of the drugs found at the scene and field tested positive for cocaine.
It was submitted to the Indiana State Police Lab, but finding out the purity of the cocaine, or if there was anything else in it, will take four to six months, Stanley said.
Stanley worked in the narcotics division for 10 years and said the amount of cocaine that was found in the apartment, and the amount they said they did, usually would not cause someone to overdose.
He speculated it could have been pure cocaine brought back from a trip to Mexico or Florida over Spring Break that caused the overdose.
“It could be the purity of the cocaine, or there was something mixed with it,” Stanley said. “Who’s to say what they did before they got there, whether they have other drugs in their system?”
Stanley said he doesn’t want to release the names unless charges are filed because the university could discipline the students.
Even though the cocaine use occurred off campus, the students are still subjected to the Student Code, which states those who violate drug policy may face sanctions up to suspension or expulsion.
“If people are charged, that is greatly going to affect their college,” Stanley said. “If a kid made a bad decision and took some drugs, I personally don’t believe they should be kicked out for that. Maybe this is all the pain they need.”
What happened Friday
Four people were taken to the hospital at the scene after overdosing on cocaine in an apartment in the Village Promenade complex. Two were found while friends were in the midst of taking them to the hospital and two others were found in the apartment.
A fifth was taken to the hospital after he got sick while being questioned at City Hall, Stanley said.
Three of the five hospitalized were released on Friday while the other two were sent to the Intensive Care Unit at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital. Stanley said he heard from the hospital they were out of ICU by Saturday evening.
“Both guys who were in the ICU were awake and walking around,” Stanley said. “They expected them to be released.”
A representative from IU Health Ball Memorial could not look up whether or not they had been released on March 23 without the patients' names.
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