8 April 27–MAy 3, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents claimed their daughter. They had tried their best to protect Sienna from the synthetic opioid. Stephanie even warned her against taking fentanyl pills. But what they didn’t know at the time was that other pills, like those billed as Xanax and Percocet, would serve as a sort of “Trojan horse” for fentanyl. They didn’t know that the imposter drug would look just like the real thing. The issue is cropping up in other states. The New York Times reported last May that two Ohio State University students had died after ingesting pills disguised as Adderall, a drug used to treat attention deficit disorder that’s popular among college kids who use it as a study aid. On the way to a recent dance competition, one of Summer Vaughn’s friends, who had hurt her ankle, asked for Advil. Stephanie then reminded the girl that taking medica- tion from a trusted friend is how Sienna got killed. “It could be Advil next time. It could be Tylenol,” she recalled telling Summer’s friend. “Everybody has to get into this mind- set: No pill from anyone except your parents.” On the night of Sunday, Feb. 19, the Vaughns had visitors from out of town. Sien- na’s close friend was over, and the pair was eating sugary snacks and goofing around. At some point, they went upstairs to Sienna’s room. Stephanie estimates they’d been gone for around an hour and a half before she knocked on the door to ask Sienna a ques- tion. No answer. She knew that something was wrong as soon as she saw the girls. Sienna was “so, so pale” and her friend was making a gurgling sound. Stephanie yelled “call 911!” and per- formed CPR on her daughter. Medical work- ers were unable to revive Sienna, although her friend survived. Despite this, Sienna’s mother finds a sort of comfort being in her daughter’s room, which looks nearly the same as it did on the night of her death. The popcorn that had been strewn all over the floor had been swept up, but Sienna’s towel is in the same spot on the ground, and her bed remains un- made. In the days after Feb. 19, Stephanie would wear the black hoodie that Sienna had loved because it smelled like her. But, Stephanie said with tears in her blue eyes, that scent has started to fade. S tefanie Turner was emotional on the night of Sienna’s candlelight vigil. It’d been 18 months since the Austin mom had attended a memorial. That one was for her son, 19-year-old Tucker Roe. Roe was an adventurer and a “spiritual deep thinker” with a huge heart, his mom recalled. After losing him to fentanyl poison- ing, Turner felt compelled to share his story: There were things she wished she had known and things she felt she could have done. The lack of fentanyl education and awareness led her to form a nonprofit orga- nization called Texas Against Fentanyl. The Vaughns are involved now, too. Turner explained at the vigil that Roe was always drug-curious. He’d started smoking weed in 8th grade to help cope with stress. But at a New Year’s Eve party in 2021, a year when fewer people knew about the dangers of fentanyl, someone offered Roe a pill that appeared to be Xanax, thereby spurring an addiction. After staying sober for a few months, Roe bought what he thought was a Percocet pill on social media, and it killed him. “What I didn’t know is what happens in the brain when you take one of those pills,” Turner told the Plano vigil attendees. “And for the record, 99% of all pills seized by the DEA contain fentanyl — 99% of pills. So, if you guys are buying a pill off of any social media, anything — if it doesn’t come from a pharmacy or a doctor, count on it having fentanyl. It has fentanyl. And 60% of those pills contain a lethal amount.” Turner told the Observer that the biggest barrier to combating the fentanyl epidemic is a lack of knowledge. The only people who understand it are those who’ve been through it, she said. Ask pretty much any high school kid if they want to try heroin, and they’ll de- cline, Turner added. She hopes that more awareness will help to create the same auto- matic refusal when it comes to illicit pills. Lawmakers in the Texas Legislature are beginning to turn their attention to the fen- tanyl crisis. A proposal that would decrimi- nalize fentanyl test strips was overwhelmingly approved by the Texas House earlier this month. And House Bill 3908, by Republican state Rep. Terry Wilson, would require fentanyl education for grades 6 through 12. It’s titled “Tucker’s Law.” Turner said she’s “honored” that her son is the bill’s namesake: “I’m very proud that his life will save others.” Earlier this month, Turner joined Gov. Greg Abbott at the One Pill Kills Summit in Austin. Abbott announced a $10 million awareness initiative focused on prevention and recognition as part of a statewide cam- paign. He also unveiled his plan to equip each of Texas’ 254 counties with Narcan. Losing your loved one to fentanyl is a life- altering event that the Vaughns and Turner are fighting to keep from happening to any- one else. It’s been difficult for Stephanie to relive the night of her daughter’s death. “We didn’t want to do any [interviews], actually,” she said, “but if it can hopefully save another kid’s life, we had to at least go public.” When the Vaughns had finished speaking at the vigil, one of Sienna’s best friends stepped up to sing. Attendees lit candles, sometimes using their own fire to touch off a neighbor’s wick. The sky was now jet-black and the tem- perature had dropped, but the Plano street- lights shone brightly as the teen finished the tribute. Afterward, the crowd dispersed, and families trudged back to their cars. One by one, Sienna’s friends and former classmates blew out their flames. Stephanie and Turner wrapped one another in a long, warm embrace. ▼ HATE CRIMES ‘PEOPLE ARE JUST LASHING OUT’ DALLAS AIMS GIVE ANTISEMITISM A NEW DEFINITION. BY KELLY DEARMORE A man armed with a pistol burst into Congregation Beth Israel in Col- leyville during a Sabbath service on January 15, 2022. For six hours, Malik Akram held four hostages before releasing one during negotiations with law enforce- ment. A few hours after that, the three re- maining hostages escaped to safety before FBI officers entered the building and killed the 44-year-old Akram. Although Akram’s brother claimed the 11- hour incident wasn’t driven by hate for Jew- ish people, the FBI did consider it to be a terrorist act and a hate crime. The episode at Congregation Beth Israel is cited by city offi- cials as a major reason that Dallas is in the process of adopting a resolution that provides a new working definition of “antisemitism.” Lindsey Wilson, director for the city’s Of- fice of Equity and Inclusion, says that specif- ically outlining what antisemitism means through the resolution for the city is much more than a symbolic statement. “What this will really do is work itself into policy,” she says. “Working definitions are critical to system changes so that people understand what we are talking about and the intentional efforts we’re aiming to ad- dress. This makes the definition formal and gives us a backbone to continue to push the work forward.” The resolution calls for the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alli- ance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemi- tism, which states “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physi- cal manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/ or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” There are concrete examples of how lo- cal authorities can determine whether anti- semitism is involved in a crime. Examples of antisemitism in the IHRA working defini- tion include: “Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerat- ing the Holocaust,” and “Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an ex- tremist view of religion.” Wilson says this effort is the result of the work done by the Mayor’s Anti-Hate Advisory Council. Established in 2021 and consisting of religious and civic leaders, the council was formed by Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson to pro- vide proactive recommendations on curbing intolerance and hate crimes in the city. “While these crimes are still relatively few in number,” Johnson said in 2021 when introducing the council, “they are dispro- portionately impactful to our city’s psyche and on the quality of life of our residents.” Sherry Goldberg co-chairs the Mayor’s Anti-Hate Advisory Council and serves as vice chair of the board of directors of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas. She gives Johnson credit for tackling the issue of hate in the city, something she thinks has gotten worse in recent years. “We live in a world where people are just lashing out against so many, not just those who are Jewish,” Goldberg says. “I worry about the transgender and LGBTQ commu- nity, too. I have a theory and I don’t know if it is true, but I think COVID really turned the world upside down. We all became depressed and I think things have been brought to a head. People are struggling more and people are angrier than they used to be.” Perhaps, as Johnson said in 2021, hate crimes are still “relatively few,” but hateful acts seem to be on the rise. The Anti-Defama- tion League logged nearly 3,700 antisemitic incidents throughout the United States in 2022, a number, the organization says, that was a 36% increase over 2021’s total. In the study, Texas accounted for 211 of those inci- dents, the fourth-highest state total and a sharp increase from 121 incidents in 2021. Goldberg says that although the Jewish population is only around 2% of the overall population in the U.S, Jews are targeted in more than half of hate crimes. The ADL also reports that its latest research suggests 20% of Americans “believe six or more antise- mitic tropes, which is significantly more than the 11% that ADL found in 2019.” Goldberg is quick to point out that the ADL numbers represent the incidents that they knew about, the ones that were re- ported. She says that people “not reporting incidents or knowing how to report inci- dents the right way” is a serious obstacle to getting a handle on what is really happening. She adds “a lot of people are so Alicia Claytor Bracelets honoring Sienna read “One Pill Can Kill” and “#siennasstory” on the outside. On the inside, it says “Spread The Word And Save A Life.” Unfair Park from p6 >> p10
