Utah
'Together we can': Hundreds gather at Utah State Capitol for Overdose Awareness Day
SALT LAKE CITY — Hundreds of people crowded the south steps of the Utah State Capitol on Saturday for International Overdose Awareness Day.
The day is recognized on a global scale every year on Aug. 31. It is the world’s largest annual campaign to end overdose and remember loved ones who died due to overdose.
Beginning in 2021, Overdose Awareness Day was officially recognized in Utah.
FOX 13 News spoke with Richard Beeman on Saturday. He lost his son, Jesse, to an overdose on May 14, 2011.
“He was a wonderful kid, a real wonderful kid. Did a lot for people, cared about everybody but himself, he did,” said Beeman.
Beeman said his son’s death happened just shy of his 20th birthday.
“I wish I could have saved him,” said Beeman. “He OD’ed the third time and passed away.”
It’s a feeling Terry Olsen knows all too well.
“It’ll be 10 years that I lost my 25-year-old son Dane to a heroin overdose,” said Olsen.
Olsen is a board member of Changes Parent Support Network, which she describes as a support group for families who have a loved one causing conflict in their home.
“The whole experience when we went through our loss, the support I received from other people … saved my sanity, helped me work through something that wasn’t in the script for our life,” said Olsen.
The theme of the event at the capitol on Saturday was “Together We Can.”
Names of loved ones lost to an overdose were read. Several speakers also stepped up to the microphone to tell their story, like Tiffany Naccarato.
“I want to say thank you to the people who helped save my life. A lot of them aren’t here today, they were not able to stand here, and it makes me happy that they chose to save my life,” said Naccarato, who serves as the community impact manager for Utah Support Advocates for Recovery Awareness. “I’m actually a 12 survivor of overdose.”
Olsen told FOX 13 News on Saturday that she is grateful every year to see the response, the people that show up to support this event and the people who are there to honor those who have been lost.
She also wants to help find solutions.
“And help for the people who are still here that we want to see not on a poster at the next overdose awareness,” said Olsen.
Provisional data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicate there were an estimated 107,543 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. during 2023. That is a 3% decrease from the estimated numbers in 2022.
This marked the first annual decrease since 2018.
On Friday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox issued an order for the U.S. flags and Utah flags to be flown at half-staff on all state facilities in recognition of Overdose Awareness Day.
SALT LAKE CITY — A California man in Utah, as part of his duties with the National Guard, is accused of trying to solicit sex from a young teenager.
Joshua Ruben Rodriguez, 29, of Fresno, was charged Tuesday in 3rd District Court with attempted rape of a child, a first-degree felony, and enticement of a minor, a second-degree felony.
The investigation began when an agent with the Utah State Bureau of Investigation posed as a 13-year-old girl on a “popular social media site … in an attempt to locate and apprehend adults attempting to have sexual contact with children,” according to charging documents.
On April 16, Rodriguez sent the agent a message — believing he was talking to a teen girl — that stated, “I’ll be direct with you, I would like to get to know you and (have sex with) your mind into a daze to where you feel like a woman,” according to charging documents.
When the “girl” asked if he had a problem with her age, Rodriguez replied, “I don’t have a problem with your age,” the charges state.
The agent told Rodriguez to meet at an apartment complex in Salt Lake County where the girl lived, claiming her mother would be gone. When Rodriguez arrived, he was taken into custody, the charges state.
“(Rodriguez) does not have ties to Utah. He is a resident of Fresno, California. (He) was in town as part of his military service with the California National Guard,” prosecutors stated in charging documents while requesting he be held without bail pending trial.
ST. GEORGE, Utah (KUTV) — One person was hospitalized at the St. George Regional Hospital after a car rolled and caught fire just south of the Utah-Arizona border.
The Beaver Dam and Littlefield Fire Department in Arizona said its crews responded to the crash near the Black Rock Road exit – roughly two miles south of the state border – on Sunday night.
Upon arrival, crews put out the car fire and found the driver had left the scene. A single occupant, who was able to get out of the car on their own, was transported to the hospital by a Beaver Dam ambulance.
MORE | Crashes
Their condition has not been publicly released.
Details on what led to the crash and the condition of the driver were not immediately available.
The Beaver Dam and Littlefield Fire Department said law enforcement investigated the scene.
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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Jazz missed out on the NBA Playoffs, but still scored a big win thanks to a coin flip.
In Monday’s tiebreaker coin flip to determine who had the fourth-worst record in the league last season, the Jazz came out winners over the Sacramento Kings, who had the same 22-60 record.
Had the Jazz lost the coin flip, they would have been fifth in NBA Draft Lottery odds. Only the worst four teams are guaranteed to remain within the top eight of the lottery.
If Utah had fallen to fifth, there would have been the chance they could have dropped out of the top 8 teams in the lottery, and owed the draft pick to Oklahoma City, which was top-8 protected in a previous trade.
The Jazz now have an 11.5 percent chance to win the first overall pick in the NBA Draft Lottery, which is scheduled for Sunday, May 10.
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