Tarrant County prosecutors are pursuing murder charges against a man accused of peddling a fentanyl-laced drug that led to a fatal overdose.
Jacob Lindsay was rebooked into Tarrant County Jail on Tuesday on a murder charge, the first of its kind in the county under a new Texas law. Lindsay is accused of selling fentanyl-laced pills disguised as Percocet to 26-year-old Brandon Harrison, who died after taking one in September. A dose of just 2 milligrams of fentanyl can have lethal effects.
“He took one pill. One pill was it. And he never woke up,” said Brandon’s father, Richard Harrison, according to WFAA.
Lindsay was first arrested by Fort Worth police a day later on drug charges. However, the recent decision of prosecutors to pursue murder charges against him was made possible by legislative efforts to make the fight against fentanyl a priority this year, as previously covered in The Dallas Express.
Approved alongside other fentanyl-related bills like Tucker’s Law, House Bill 6 increases the penalties for producing or distributing fentanyl, allowing dealers in Texas to be charged with murder in the case of a fatal overdose. The new law now classifies overdoses from fentanyl as “poisonings.” Fentanyl is estimated to kill approximately five people a day in Texas.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law in June, and it took effect on September 1.
As a similar bill was working its way through the Texas Senate in March, Abbott took to X to issue a warning to fentanyl dealers.
“You kill Texans with fentanyl. You get charged with murder,” he wrote.
The murder case against Lindsay, which is expected to go before a grand jury, represents a toughened approach to fighting drug crime in Tarrant County.
“The message it sends to the dope dealers is, we’re coming for you,” said Fort Worth police officer Sgt. Scott Barnes, according to CBS Texas. “Stop selling fentanyl or you’re going to get hooked up for murder.”
Barnes, who works on the Fentanyl Overdose Response Team, told CBS that the team fields approximately three overdose deaths a week in Fort Worth alone.
In Dallas, drug offenses are on the rise, with 9,736 logged as of December 13, according to the City’s crime analytics dashboard. This is a 4.5% increase year over year.
Reflecting a critical staffing problem within the Dallas Police Department — which has only 3,200 officers even though a City report recommended closer to 4,000 — is Downtown Dallas’ significantly higher rates of drug crime compared to Fort Worth’s downtown area. One study by the Metroplex Civic and Business Association in April found that for every 41 drug offenses clocked in Downtown Dallas, just one was logged in Fort Worth’s city center, which is patrolled by a dedicated police unit and private security guards.