The 'unintended victim': a picture worth a thousand words

Yahoo

27-03-2025

(COLORADO) — It's not often that you get to look behind the scenes of federal operations and what happens when agents encounter children. In an exclusive one-on-one interview with Assistant Special Agent in Charge David Olesky of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Rocky Mountain Field Division (DEA RMFD), FOX21's Sarah Ferguson unraveled the story behind a photo that will forever leave its mark on the heart and soul of the DEA.
There is always a great story behind every picture, and this one is no exception.
'So last week, just like this week, our men and women are out there every single day pursuing this gang, that's TdA [Tren de Aragua],' Olesky said about the DEA RMFD operations that took place on Thursday, March 20, in Denver and Aurora.
'We ultimately ended up apprehending six individuals, one of them a confirmed TdA member, all of them Venezuelan nationals, and all of them were turned over to ICE ERO for potential deportation,' he said.
Olesky said the operation also marked a significant arrest for the DEA and other federal agencies, including Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), and the U.S. Marshals Service, just to name a few.
'One of the individuals, the confirmed TdA member that was apprehended, was affiliated with the Dallas Street Apartments, which has received national attention due to TdA's takeover of that apartment complex,' he said. 'We have been looking for him for months, and so, he was taken off the streets last week.'
In total, three operations took place on Thursday, according to Olesky.
'At one of the locations, one of the females we apprehended, sadly but also shockingly, the drug that has been associated with TdA, has been this 'tusi,' or pink cocaine, and the woman we had contacted at this location had actually just snorted tusi and had it in her nose visibly as we apprehended her,' he said.
It was the follow-up interview, though, that would shock agents even more.
'During the interview of this woman, she was talking about her five-year-old son that she was concerned about,' said Olesky. 'Throughout the course of our day, we had one more operation to complete, and our agents had apprehended one individual, and as they were about to take him away, he said there was a five-year-old kid inside the apartment complex.'
Agents quickly went inside looking for the child.
'Our agents went in there… they actually thought he was dead, to be frank; he was sleeping in the back bedroom of this apartment in a known TdA, confirmed TdA member's place,' he said. 'Meanwhile, our agents were outside getting harassed by agitators and protestors who had shown up in Aurora basically fighting for us to release this known TdA member; they have no idea what's going on inside this apartment complex.'
What struck Olesky even more was a photo captured inside the apartment. The photo showed the child, or the unintended victim, being comforted by an agent, who sat by his side playing video games—a light to a very dark day.
'You have this guy with his tactical gear and his vest on, taking care of business in terms of enforcement, but also showing the heart that our agents have and caring for someone like this and being able distinguish when to turn it on and when to turn it off and I am just so proud of the team that was out there,' Olesky said.
Over the next three to four hours, the child was cared for by agents, according to Olesky. 'We had personnel out on the streets as well to protect our agents and ultimately found a caretaker [for the child], facilitated by both ICE ERO but then also by the mother, who happened to be the mother from the first location earlier in the day.'
Inside the apartment complex, according to Olesky, was also drug paraphernalia, posing an even greater threat to the most vulnerable.
'Here in the state of Colorado, we have had a number of infant deaths and kid deaths due to fentanyl and drug overdoses,' he said. 'These are the type of folks that are reckless in their conduct, and if you think that that TdA member cares for you as a Coloradan, or as an American, or as his neighbors in the community—look at how he was caring for this five-year-old kid.'
Olesky said that when they encounter children, like the little boy on Thursday, it makes him angry. 'I've got kids; it makes me so mad because when the agents got in there, they thought he was dead and then I saw the photo of the mom who has tusi up her nose and then here we are getting harassed, so to see this young boy and to see that he's calm and that he's relaxed there with the agents, hopefully because of the work that our agents did that day he will have a better path ahead of him.'
Knowing that this little boy was saved from this situation is what Olesky said he is grateful for and wants everyone to understand the threat that pink cocaine and other drugs pose, especially to children.
Olesky further elaborated on what pink cocaine actually is and why it is so dangerous.
'It's such a combination of different drugs; it could be ketamine, MDMA, cocaine, as I said; there's no ingredient list on these things, it's actually a very expensive drug, a few thousand dollars per ounce,' he said. '[And so] when we see this particular drug, typically right now, the one mainly trafficking it is this Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua.'
Taking criminals off the streets and saving the most vulnerable is what Olesky said he and his agents continue to pursue day in and day out. 'It does reaffirm, it does motivate; to see, on one hand, this individual be held accountable for his conduct, while simultaneously showing compassion for the unintended victim, as we say, who was a victim of this criminal conduct.'
Olesky hopes people understand the greater picture in terms of what they are trying to do to make our communities safer: 'We still have a lot more work to be done and that's what I am even more proud of because these guys pick up and go out there right the next day and get after it.'
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