The 16-year-old being held in a Greeley youth detention center who suffered a medical emergency in October died from complications of acute fentanyl toxicity, the Weld County coroner ruled.
An autopsy report concluded the boy’s manner of death was accidental. The Denver Post is not identifying him because he was a minor.
A staff member has been suspended for allegedly bringing contraband into the Platte Valley Youth Services Center. That individual remains a state employee, pending an investigation by law enforcement and the Weld County Department of Human Services, a state Department of Human Services spokesperson said.
Colorado’s Division of Youth Services, which oversees the state’s 14 youth detention and commitment facilities, had not previously said how the teen died. Greeley police, in announcing the death, only called it a “medical emergency.”
“The safety and well-being of the youth entrusted to our care remain our highest priority, and we will continue to take proactive steps to protect them from the pervasive threat of substance use,” said AnneMarie Harper, a Colorado Department of Human Services spokesperson.
Staff at the Platte Valley Youth Services Center on Oct. 21 saw the teen early in the morning after contacting him about getting ready for school, the autopsy report states. He said he did not want to go to school, so staff left to check on him later.
Personnel returned soon afterward to find the teen unresponsive in his room. Staff administered naloxone, a medication that can reverse opioid overdoses, and performed CPR.
He died two weeks later, on Nov. 4, at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora.
Shortly after the incident, youth detention officials suspended a staff member while they investigated allegations concerning “professional conduct and introducing contraband into the youth center.”
Internal state incident reports reviewed by The Denver Post show an unnamed party reported to facility leadership shortly after the incident that the staffer allegedly provided “percs” — a street name for Percocet, a highly addictive opioid-based painkiller — to the teen the night before he overdosed.
At least seven young people in Colorado youth detention centers were hospitalized following overdose-related emergency calls last year, including three teens who required life-saving naloxone at a Colorado Springs facility on the same day over the summer, The Post reported in November.
The Colorado Department of Human Services previously told The Post that the state was not aware of any youth deaths due to overdoses in state-run detention facilities within at least the last 30 years.
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