It was January of 1971 and Boardman Police Chief Dan Maggianetti issued his annual report to township trustees.
      That report noted one small item, out of the more than 900 arrests police made that year, seven were for ‘narcotics-related offenses,’ all for marihuana.
      Chief Maggianetti felt those seven arrests were an indicator of future problems, so much so that during 1970, he gave more than 40 drug-related speeches to civic and school groups.
      Was anybody listening?
     
      2013 was not a good year for Boardman Township. Almost every week, the township’s Narcotics Enforcement Unit (NEU), headed by Det. Mike Hughes was out staging raids, centering on illegal heroin sales and other opiates.
      In some instances during those raids where heroin was found, small children were playing nearby.
      During one three-month stretch last summer, three young Boardman kids died from suspected heroin-related deaths.
      A 19-year-old girl, Erin Trell, became unconscious at a party on the north side of Youngstown and never woke up. A 20-year-old boy, Dan Watkins, was shot to death during a heroin deal gone bad on the south side of Youngstown.
      A 22-year-old man, Frank Davanzo, shot up heroin and was found dead in a wooded-area off Southern Blvd.
      Trell, Watkins and Davanzo were all recent graduates of Boardman High School. In death they became little more than a statistic, whose futures were wiped-out by their addiction.
      The recent deaths prompted the Boardman Local Schools to hold a special assembly in November for students under the banner of the first annual ‘Yes Fest.’
      Featured speakers at the assembly were the parents of two young men who died of heroin overdoses. They delivered powerful messages about drug addiction to students.
      “Our speakers will encourage you to continue to say no to drugs that surround us,” high school principal Jared Cardillo said in opening remarks, noting that the “drugs that surround us can have deadly consequences.”
      Angelo Martino, of West Glen Dr., lost his son, Angelo Jr., 34, on Aug. 1, 2012.
      “A little over a year ago, I placed my hand on my son’s back and tried to wake him. It was within seconds that I realized...that he was dead of a drug overdose.”
      “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me,” Mr. Martino told students at the assembly, “But, we need your help.”
      Mr. Martino said his son was involved in an auto accident and had been prescribed oxycontin.
      “He became addicted to opiates and when those weren’t available, heroin was,” Mr. Martino said.
      Boardman Police Chief Jack Nichols will tell anyone who will listen, opiates can be expensive. But heroin is cheap and plentiful (sells for less than a baggie of pot), despite on-going efforts of law enforcement.
      “I have come to realize that you [the young people in the audience], our future leaders, can help fulfill this father’s mission---That no parents learn their child has died of a drug overdose.”
      Angelo Martino Jr. was no stranger to drugs and heroin. Just three months before his own death, he had walked into his apartment at 134 Lemans Dr. to find 30-year-old Jeffrey Gallagher Jr., of Creed St. in Struthers, laying on a couch.
      Ptl. David Sheely described the scene---
      “Gallagher was blue in the face and unresponsive.”
      On May 30, 2012, Martino Jr. told police he left his apartment for just two hours and when he got back, he just couldn’t wake his fellow drug-addicted friend, Jeffrey Gallagher Jr.
      “Martino stated he threw ice water on Gallagher and he would not wake up.
      “Martino stated he then put ammonia on a rag and tried to get Gallagher to smell it to wake up.
      “But he still would not respond.
      “Martino stated that Gallagher stopped breathing and he saw white foam emitting from Gallagher’s nose and mouth,” Officer Sheely reported.
      It wasn’t as though Gallagher’s death could not be expected.
      At the time, Gallagher told Martino that he wanted to get high on heroin. He did, and never woke up.
      The death in his own apartment didn’t stop Martino Jr. from using heroin. It was on Aug. 1, 2012 that police were called to his father’s house just before 8:00 a.m.
      Ptl. Michael Mullins described Martino’s death scene---
      “The victim was found on a back porch...slumped forward onto his face...There appeared to be parts of a syringe protruding from under his shoulder.
      “Nearby the victim were items used to prepare narcotics for intravenous use---a lighter and a burnt spoon and toilet tissue...
      “The body was removed to the coroner’s office.”
      Angelo Martino Sr., the father who now has to live the rest of his life thinking about the cost of his son’s addiction, urged students at the Yes Fest to “help make a difference in someone’s life...take a leadership role, all you have to do is take a step forward and help make a difference in someone’s life.”
      Martino Sr. told students they could face “a choice to start experimenting with drugs is available...Absolutely nothing good can come of it.
      He said that watching some with an addiction “is like watching that person is walking dead...
      “Watching a loving young man with dreams for the future be controlled every waking minute and hour [by the desire for drugs] is as bad as death...
      “I beg each of you to be wise...learn from the mistakes of those who are no longer with us.”
      Angelo Martino Jr. was a friend of another drug addict by the name of Dennis Howells Jr., a 2001 graduate of Boardman High School. Less than a year after Martino’s death, Howells died the same way.
      On June 5, 2013, police were sent to 7473 Huntington Dr., where they found the 30-year-old Howells lying on his back, arms raised above his head, blood coming from his nostrils.
      His mom, Anna Howells was there too, as Ptl. Richard Romeo reported “We discovered [his mother, Anna] crying atop the victim’s body.”
      Ptl. Romeo said police found illegal narcotics and a burnt spoon on a night stand.
      Also inside the apartment when Anna Howells arrived to check on her son were two white males and a black female sleeping in the living room.
      They too were likely drug addicts, who apparently knew something was wrong with Dennis Howells but failed to act.
      When Anna Howells showed-up at her son’s residence, the scum bags there “left in a hurry,” Ptl. Romeo reported, noting one stated “Something’s wrong with Dennis.”
      Angelo Martino Jr. and Dennis Howells Jr. were friends. Shortly after Martino died of a drug overdose, his dad visited Dennis’s mom, urging her to get her son to stop using drugs, or else he could end up like Martino Jr.
      Like so many addicts, Howells didn’t hear the message---or perhaps his addiction was so powerful, it didn’t matter anyway.
      Anna Howells perhaps first learned of her son’s addiction eight years before his death.
      “In 2004, I found a needle and immediately got my son into a treatment program,” she said, noting her son went to many recovery programs.
      But, she indicated as her son struggled with his addiction for so long, “It wasn’t about getting high...It was about survival.” Her son no longer used to get high, he used “just to feel normal.”
      Anna Howells said her son’s addiction took not only his life, but exacted a heavy toll on his family and everyone he knew.
      “The addiction drove him to lie and steal. His criminal behavior was a requirement to pay for his daily habit.
      “He lost the respect of everyone closest to him...Court dates made him feel hopeless that he would ever be able to have a normal life...
      “All the dreams were taken from him by heroin...It has no mercy for no one.
      “Addiction is cruel and heartless. It will strip everything that life has to offer,” Howells said.
      She said her son’s addiction began in nigh school when so-called friends “enticed him into drinking and drugs.”
      “15 years of addiction were very hard, not only for Dennis, but for his family. The disease will swallow-up anyone involved in the addict’s life.
      “Addiction is relentless...as the heart-ache of broken promises, over and over again,” Howells said.
      “The day that I stared down at my son’s lifeless body, I remember thinking ‘this has happened to me.’ Now I am on a journey...[and]...I want to say to you, say yes to life,” Howell urged students.
      She concluded, “Remember, if you choose drugs, once you walk through that door and you realize what addiction is, you will turn around and try to walk back through that door...Not only will that door shut...that door will not exist anymore. There will be no turning back.”
     
      Last year, there was no turning back for Erin Trell, Dan Watkins and Frank Davanzo.
      They weren’t the only victims of the dredge of drug addiction.
      There was the woman who went to one of Boardman’s cheap motels, overdosed and died, and a man took her lifeless body, stuffed it into a car, drove into Youngstown and dumped the body on the side of a road.
      There were the many drug-related incidents where no one died, but got arrested at Boardman’s cheap motels for drug charges---all of them on the path to complete self-destruction.
      More than 70 per cent of all thefts in Boardman are now related to drug addiction.
      In 1969, Boardman Police Chief Dan Maggianetti reported two “narcotics-related” offenses in Boardman, both for marihuana use.
      When that total tripled in one year, to seven “narcotics-related” offense (marihuana) in 1970, Chief Maggianetti saw a problem, and spent a day every week speaking to groups about drug and addiction.
      Little more than four decades later, statistics show there were at least 500 drug-related incidents to which the Boardman Police Department responded, and the Narcotic Enforcement Unit staged raids almost weekly, arresting 60 persons for drug charges.