The acid in Santa Cruz is really bad right now, man. Either that or it's really, really good and it's making people so out of their minds that they're committing crimes and getting arrested, and in one case getting killed. Santa Cruz County sheriff's officials have put out a public warning about a spike in LSD use among local teens, as CBS 5 reports, but is it actually a spike in use or just that dosages are all wrong?
The latest incident involved a teenager who had to be hospitalized Wednesday after someone dosed her popsicle, or after she put liquid LSD on the popsicle herself.
Two days earlier, on Monday, a 29-year-old Watsonville man believed to be tripping on acid led CHP officers on a chase on Highway 17 after he drove into a construction zone. CHP officers told Bay City News that after they tried to pull over the man, who was identified as Marko Manojlovic, he "drove into a metal fence, got out of the car, jumped over the fence and fled on foot." Manojlovic then allegedly assaulted the two officers who caught up to him on foot, kicking on several times, and he was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, evading arrest, resisting arrest and battery of a police officer.
And these incidents happened several weeks after 15-year-old Luke Smith stabbed his father and uncle after taking LSD with a friend, just before 3 a.m. on November 19. In an ensuing standoff with Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputies in which Smith was allegedly threatening officers, a sheriff's deputy fatally shot Smith. As KSBW reports, Smith took a larger dose than his friend, and the friend had left to go home after Smith became angry on his trip. In confronting the officers, Smith was allegedly swinging a knife and refusing to put it down, even after being bitten by a K-9, and being hit with a dozen non-lethal 40mm foam rounds.
In attempting to talk Smith down, sheriff's deputy Chris Vigil could be heard on camera footage saying to Smith, "LSD is a tough thing, because it's hard to differentiate between what's real and what's not. Put the knife down, buddy." Vigil would be the one to shoot the single lethal shot from his AR15 rifle.
Four people were arrested one day later at a Santa Cruz home because they were believed to be the source of the acid that Smith took one of whom was found unconscious in the home due to a suspected drug overdose.
Bradley Allen Hodge II, 24, Taylor Filson, 28, Thomas Negron, 20, and Nathaniel Trecaso, 28 are all facing charges that include felony manufacture of a controlled substance, and as the Mercury News reported, sheriff's investigators found methamphetamine, ecstacy, and an unknown substance, all packaged for sale, along with LSD in the home.
Negron could not be arraigned with the others because he was in custody in Georgia at the time on an unrelated charge of trafficking 10 pounds of marijuana. Trecaso remained hospitalized in a "semi-conscious" state days after the raid.
Per KSBW, Smith's sister Savannah posted a warning to friends on Facebook that said, "There is a bad batch of LSD circulating throughout the area. This batch of LSD made my brother extremely violent and ended with the police shooting him. Nothing could stop him from what he was doing, because he wasn't himself; this drug brought out some form of evil in him."
Friends and family all said that the violent incident was extremely out of character for Smith, who was an avid surfer and skater.
A toxicology report for Smith is still pending.
Previously: Santa Cruz Fraternity And Sorority Members Busted In MDMA Drug Ring
