95 people overdosed on heroin in this neighborhood alone in 2017.

City health department statistics show if the South Bronx was its own state, it would have the second highest fatal overdose rate in the country, following West Virginia.

Which is why police here have focused particular attention to these streets.​

"When you came out in the morning, you would see, numerous individuals on the sidewalk engaging in transactions walking in and out of the stores," said Inspector Brian Hennessy, commanding officer of the NYPD's 40th Precinct.

"There's a playground right up the block near a public school. We have complaints of needle use and needles exposed where children can walk by and see it," Hennessy said.

The community and local businesses were fed up.

"Between aggressive drug dealers attempting to deal out of storefronts to overdoses in front of storefronts to open sale  on the streets, all of those have contributed to an unsavory environment that has really deterred a community atmosphere," said Michael Brady, executive director of the Third Avenue BID.

Hennessy asked Bronx Narcotics to get involved and for a year, investigators watched as a crew of 10 allegedly ran an open-air drug market.​

"We had a lot of narcotics complaints basically from the playground down below and our investigation started 100 feet from here," he said.

"There were five overdoses based on this crew and they were using a new drug known as fentanyl," said Inspector Lorenzo Johnson, the commanding officer of Narcotics Borough Bronx.

Which Johnson said likely lead to the fatal overdoses of two people last year.

Johnson told a packed community meeting of residents and business owners that those arrested are being charged with conspiracy and will be held accountable for each death associated with the drug sales.

"When you sell a narcotic to somebody and they overdose and it's a fatal overdose they call it death by sale and it holds up to 20 years in a federal prison," he said.

Det. Jose Reyna who investigated the case, said taking these suspects down brings a sense of closure.

​"People are crying for help out here, the drug epidemic, the opioid epidemic is serious. Good families are losing great people at people's expense," he said.