Yeah he had to! Boy found in car with unconscious couple has been re-homed

A boy photographed in a car with a couple unconscious from an apparent drugs overdose has been re-homed with his great aunt and great uncle.

The picture of the unnamed four-year-old spread across social mediaafter it was shared by police who spotted a car driving erratically in East Liverpool, Ohio, last week.

They found the boy's grandmother, 50-year-old Rhonda Pasek, slumped in the passenger seat and her friend, 47-year-old James Lee Acord behind the wheel.

The couple became unconscious while they were being questioned by police, who took the picture and shared it as a warning about the dangers of "the poison known as heroin".

Pasek secured custody of the boy six weeks earlier after her son and his girlfriend struggled to manage, according to her sister who did not want to be identified.

"It's the old story. No education, no jobs. My sister fought for two years straight to get this child," she told NBC News, adding her family was embarrassed when the image was published on the city's Facebook page.

"The city of East Liverpool humiliated my family and humiliated that little boy," she said.

"They could have blurred his face and they didn't. And now they're taking him away from my sister. I'm not condoning what Rhonda's done, but what they did to her and what they're doing to her grandson is too much."

Brian Allen, the city's director of public services and safety, stood by the decision to release the picture, arguing the public needed to see the damage heroin does to abusers and their families.

"As a public official I can't blur public records and this photo is a public record," he told NBC.

"It's all or nothing for us. We're a government agency posting it. It's not like we can willy-nilly do what we want."

The case is being treated as a "suspected heroin overdose" while police await the results of an analysis of a substance recovered from the car.

Pasek has pleaded not guilty to child endangering charges and is scheduled to appear in court next week.

Acord pleaded no contest to a charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated and endangering children and was jailed for one year.

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