A 24-year-old man died in front of Eugene Weekly’s offices early on the morning of April 25. Eugene police say the cause of his death is still under investigation, but the signs point to a drug overdose. 

Police identified the man as Ian Alexander Stouder of Eugene. Surveillance video shows four people, including Stouder, gathered outside EW’s office at 1251 Lincoln St. around 7:20 that morning. Three people left a few minutes after 8 am, and Stouder remained alone on the bench in front of the office. 

An EW employee discovered Stouder shortly before 9 am and called 911. Eugene Police Department spokesperson Melinda McLaughlin said the medical examiner will determine the official cause of death. 

EPD responded to 1,124 overdose calls for service in 2023, a 130 percent increase over the past five years, driven by easy access to fentanyl, an opioid far more lethal than heroin. These numbers do not account for the calls that Eugene Springfield Fire responds to or the overdoses that are not called in. 

Eugene police say they are finding that at least one person every day survives an overdose because someone provides naloxone, also known as Narcan, a drug that revives people experiencing an opioid overdose. 

Editor’s note: Eugene Weekly has written frequently about deaths on the streets of our city, and we have written extensively about Oregon’s opioid crisis and efforts such as Measure 110, which decriminalized possession of drugs and sought to increase access to treatment. We continue to write about the deaths of unhoused people, stories we have been telling since 2020, many of which are the result of overdoses.

An individual overdose death usually does not lead to a news story — a sad testament to the frequency of overdoses. Given that death happened on our doorstep, we owe it to you, our readers, to provide as much information as we can about this incident.

EW has doses of naloxone provided through Lane County Behavioral Health and CORE Eugene available.