It's a grim scene played out in countless towns across America, and it must surely haunt the dreams of every parent and teacher: an idyllic high school becomes, almost overnight, a marketplace for deadly narcotics. Such was the case for Los Gatos High School, where a series of student overdose incidents led to the arrest and eventual conviction of a drug dealer trading in fentanyl-laced pills. The culprit, a 23-year-old San Jose man by the name of Simon Armendariz, will now be sentenced to a sobering 12-year prison term, echoing the clarion call that District Attorney Jeff Rosen delivered in the wake of his conviction: "Just so everybody knows: fentanyl kills."
Armendariz's conviction follows an investigation by the Santa Clara Police Department after they responded to a student overdose on a counterfeit Percocet pill laced with fentanyl. This deadly cocktail was traced back to Armendariz, prompting further inquiries into his dealings with high school pupils. According to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office, the investigation revealed that he was not only selling drugs to minors, but also supplying them in a church parking lot near the school before classes began.
Armendariz was dealing drugs to multiple students at the high school, some of whom carried Narcan – a drug used to rapidly reverse opioid overdoses – with them, aware of the potential for tragedy. The youngest of these teenagers was a mere 15 years old, who overdosed in a bathroom at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.
