PLACER COUNTY, Calif. — The Placer County District Attorney's Office filed murder charges in connection with an Auburn fentanyl death from August.
The district attorney's office amended a criminal complaint Wednesday for 24-year-old Aaron Dare of Fair Oaks to include murder. Dare is accused of selling illicit fentanyl which resulted in a person's death.
Dare pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and his bail was set at $1 million. He is currently being held at the Placer County Jail and is set to be in court again on Nov. 30.
The first time the district attorney's office filed murder charges in a fentanyl-related death was in Feb. 2022.
“The message to the dealers is pretty clear: If you sell fentanyl in our community, we will come after you aggressively, as evidenced by the murder charges today,” said Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire in a statement to ABC10. “The message to the community is: This fentanyl is out there and it’s in different forms. Pills and powders that you purchase from street dealers, it’s going to be fentanyl and it’s likely going to be fatal. So we have to continue to get the messages out about the presence and dangers of fentanyl on our streets, and hope that those who are seeking to buy it, talk to folks and seek help before they make that decision.”
Why is fentanyl so dangerous?
According to the CDC, from April 2020 to April 2021, more than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States, which is an increase of around 28% from the same period the prior year.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50-100x stronger than morphine, according to the CDC. Most of the recent cases of fentanyl overdoses are linked to illicitly manufactured fentanyl as opposed to pharmaceutical fentanyl.
Find more information about fentanyl at Placer County's website.
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