ATLANTA — A man who admits he was one of the biggest heroin dealers in the Atlanta neighborhood that was one of the worst heroin markets in the southeast says he was also an addict who has now lost more than 30 friends to fentanyl overdoses.
But Bruce Tye tells Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne he found a path to redemption and now works to inspire others to get clean or to avoid the tortured life he once led.
“It ain’t many places that I didn’t sell or use around here,” Tye said.
“When you’re on these streets, you’re always carrying a gun?” Winne asked
“Mandatory, absolutely,” Tye said. “The Bluff is a trap. Once you’re in, it’s like a spider web. It’s hard to get out.”
Don’t just take his word. His friends told Winne about what he was like back then.
“Ran lookout for him, watch the corner, help open up bags. How a bad a dude was he? Oh he was a big guy. He’s not to be messed with,” one of his friends said.
“At that time, he wasn’t nothing to play with, he just about his business, about his money,” another friend said.
Tye’s tale is about the possibilities for redemption and hope.
“God played a huge role,” he said.
“He give me hope,” one of Tye’s friends said.
“Give me hope that you know it ain’t too late, you know, that I can overcome this addiction. It’s a question of whether the addiction gets you first? That’s true. That’s truth,” another of Tye’s friends said.
The possibilities exist for a community’s comeback.
“This is a better place. People can walk, families can walk, actually walk through here,” Tye said.
He saw the rise of deadly fentanyl on the street, which he witnessed when it began showing up mixed with heroin.
“I can see a transition. I can see a change. The bad part is I’ve lost so many friends over here. You know, my last count was like 30 something,” Tye said, lost to fentanyl.
“How many of your friends out here in the Bluff have died from fentanyl overdoses?” Winne asked.
“Countless, countless,” he said.
Tye says his own heroin addiction drove his dealing but he admits he sold more than he needed to support his addiction.
Tye says the beginning of his new beginning came in June 2015 in a massive Bluff crackdown by federal agents, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Atlanta police.
“If you had not been busted here, would you still be here?” Winne asked.
“Absolutely not. I would definitely for sure be dead,” Tye said.
But Tye says even a five-year sentence after a guilty plea in federal court wasn’t enough. He got out and went back to The Bluff and heroin, back to prison and back to heroin.
“I was crying, and I just put the gun to my head,” Tye said. “I can remember God just whispering to me to go.”
He went to Florida. Tye says that a girlfriend had been trying to convince him to go there, and this time he did.
“She just kept telling me to trust God. I went down there with no plan, no money, nothing but faith,” he said.
“Went to detox, went to a sober living house, and my life has been up from there. God made a way,” Tye said.
He’s spoken to youth at Promise Center about getting away from drugs.
Tye says he speaks about hope and Christ, that he got a job building aircraft parts. He volunteers, and he helps baptize.
“I guess … it’s something that God see in me and I don’t see in myself. I just got to … wake up and just say … enough is enough,“ Tye said.
“I’m just hoping that I can change before that, you know, before my number is called,” one of Tye’s friends said.
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