NYPD Arrests Four At Heroin House Where Philip Seymour Hoffman Allegedly Bought Drugs

This story sort of reminds me of Gangs of New York, where the Tammany Hall guy has to make it look like he’s tough on crime, so he goes into the Five Points and Bill the Butcher delivers him some schmucks to hang. At least, that’s the impression I get from the four people the NYPD just arrested at an apartment where Philip Seymour Hoffman allegedly bought drugs.

During the raid that led to the arrest of the three men and one woman, police recovered 350 glassine-type bags of what is believed to be heroin, the officials said. [CNN]

Authorities entered the Mott Street building and at around 7:30 p.m. and nabbed four people after getting a tip that the “Capote” star was sold heroin there a couple of months ago.
The bags found in the apartments did not have the “Ace of Spades” stamp, which were on the bags found in Hoffman’s apartment, sources said.
Police arrested Robert Vineberg, 57, Thomas Kushman 48, and charged them with felony drug possession.
Two younger people, Max Rosenblum and Juliana Luchkiw, both 22, were arrested and charged with misdemeanor drug possession.
Luchkiw, a student at The New School [NYU], was camera shy at the 9th Precinct Station House in Manhattan Wednesday morning.
“Stop taking pictures, stop taking pictures,” she yelled at a photographer.
Her colleague Rosenblum tried to console her.
“This has nothing to do with you, babe,” he said. [NYPost]

Well I for one am just glad that these dangerous drugs are off the street. Now, when a junkie thinks about shooting up, he’s going to have to deal with scrounging a few extra dollars for the privilege.

Investigators discovered close to 50 envelopes of what they believed was heroin in [Philip apartment, the law enforcement sources said. They also found used syringes, prescription drugs and empty glassine-type bags, the sources said.
Preliminary tests Tuesday showed the heroin recovered from the apartment does not contain fentanyl, a law enforcement official told CNN. More testing will be done.
Fentanyl is a powerful narcotic used to treat cancer patients’ pain.
Last week, Maryland officials said heroin tainted with fentanyl had claimed at least 37 lives since September. And last month, at least 22 people in western Pennsylvania died after using heroin mixed with fentanyl.
While results of an autopsy will definitively reveal exactly how Hoffman, 46, died, the role heroin may or may not have played is a key part of the investigation. [CNN]

I’m not a fancy doctor, but I’m going to go ahead and guess that heroin did play a part in the death. The needle still stuck in the arm of the corpse is usually a giveaway.

What I’d really like is for the police to arrest every columnist who felt the need to write a thinkpiece about how heroin is bad and being an addict is hard in the wake of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death. Great work, guys. I award you all the Tom Friedman Memorial Trophy for total obviousness. Without these heroes, who could’ve ever guessed that doing heroin was a bad idea? People sure loooove hearing stuff they already know. Makes a man feel smart.

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