Five-year-old brings heroin for ‘show and tell’

A 5-year-old boy brought 50 packets of heroin to school for "show and tell" Monday, police said.

Police spokesman Keith Bryant said the boy's stepfather was later arrested as he came to the school to retrieve the drugs and instead found police waiting for him.

Santos Roman, 35, of Kossuth Street, was charged with risk of injury to a minor, possession of narcotics, sale of narcotics and possession of narcotics within 1,500 feet of a school.

He was being held in lieu of $100,000 bond pending arraignment Tuesday in Superior Court.

According to Bryant, the boy, a kindergarten student at Barnum School, had come to school carrying Roman's jacket. When it came time to make his presentation in class, Bryant said the boy opened the jacket and showed off to his classmates 10 small plastic bags, each containing five folds of heroin. He said the teacher quickly grabbed the bags away from the student and notified the principal, who then called police.

A short time later, Bryant said, Roman arrived at the school and began frantically searching for his stepson. He spied his jacket in an empty classroom and ran out of the school with it only to find the drugs gone. In fact, they were already in the possession of police, who took Roman into custody.

Bryant said the drugs have a street value of about $500.

The boy was turned over to the custody of the state Department of Children and Families until his other family can be located, Bryant added.