But "in terms of public health, our biggest problems in that area are the extended stay hotels and the associated heroin epidemic in the United States today," Capt. John Magill of the Miami Twp. Police Department.
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Magill said the Hawthorn Suites By Wyndam Miamisburg/Dayton Mall South where three suspects are accused of trying to hit officers with a car Thursday is "not a high crime area in comparison" to other extended stay spots in the Ohio 725/741 corridor near Interstate 75.
Three men were arrested last Thursday in Miami Twp. following an investigation by police that ended with officers shooting at the suspects after they allegedly tried to hit the police with their vehicle.
Those arrested were Shaun Hill, 27; Richard Benton, 28; and Antwaun Brown, 31, according to jail records. Brown was the driver and he was faces a charge of felonious assault on a police officer while the other two face charges obstructing official business.
The heroin overdoses at the extended stay sites have been more common than in other areas of the township, he said.
“That business model,” Magill said, not the specific businesses, “apparently attracts heroin addicts.”
RELATED: More than half of Montgomery County overdose deaths outside Dayton.
Twenty-one drug overdose deaths were reported in the township in 2016, with at least four being at hotels, according to Montgomery County Coroner’s Office records. Eight were Miami Twp. residents.
“We reach out to all of hotels with that business model – extended stay places,” he said. “If you will – it’s hotels that are rented by the week and not overnight, or by the month.
“It’s intended to be short-term for business people but it tends to attract a lot of heroin addicts,” Magill added.
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Miamisburg law enforcement officials agree. A few of the half dozen or more of those sites around the mall were noted during a session that city’s elected officials held last spring on the rising usage of opioids, prescription and heroin.
“We keep a pretty close eye on those places,” Magill said. “When we have done drug saturation patrols here….our focus has been the extended stay hotels. And this is just on the basis of fatal heroin overdoses we have at those places.”
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