By Karen Garcia
Los Angeles Times
SACRAMENTO — An on-duty Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy survived after overdosing on fentanyl he had seized during an arrest, a recently published internal investigation has revealed.
The 2023 incident initially sparked alarm as officials believed he had collapsed after being “exposed” to fentanyl. The sheriff’s spokesperson alerted the media, and some deputies who had witnessed their colleague’s near-death sought therapy, according to the 468-page internal report.
Deputy Marvin Morales was discovered unresponsive on the floor of a sheriff’s station bathroom. Drug paraphernalia was in the pocket of his uniform.
Morales later told sheriff’s officials that he had ingested the drug “with the intent to commit suicide” because he had been suffering from depression. The investigation would reveal, however, that this was not the first time Morales had used drugs he’d seized.
In the Oct. 24, 2023, incident that led to his overdose, Morales conducted a “suspicious subject stop” around 5:40 p.m. and found a tinfoil bundle with methamphetamine in it sticking out of the suspect’s pants. A laboratory test on the narcotics would later identify the seized drug as fentanyl, the report states.
Nearly three hours later, Morales, who was on duty and in full uniform, entered the public lobby and restroom of the sheriff’s Central Division Station in south Sacramento. The investigation found that Morales smoked some of the methamphetamine he’d seized using a glass pipe “he obtained at some point during the course of his duties and a torch lighter that had been in his patrol vehicle.”
Another deputy found Morales unconscious on the bathroom floor; a glass pipe with burned residue was nearby, the report states. Officers administered Narcan in an effort to reverse the overdose. Morales was transported to a hospital for further treatment and survived.
Responding officers found the tinfoil of methamphetamine that Morales had seized earlier in a pants pocket of his uniform.
The investigation also found that, on two separate occasions in August, Morales had cited individuals for misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia, then lied about how he disposed of the items.
In his routine crime reports on each incident, Morales said he secured a glass methamphetamine pipe and “due to the fragile state of the glass pipe and to avoid breaking it, I took a photograph of it with my department-issued iPhone as I would be using this photograph as evidence,” and disposed of the pipe at the sheriff’s station.
In an internal interview, the report says, Morales confessed that he had lied in one of the crime reports and had taken the methamphetamine pipe home and smoked the drug residue from the pipe three or four times over four months.
Morales told officials he did it because it “gave him the ‘energy’ he needed to write in-custody reports.”
Investigators challenged Morales’ assertions, citing a toxicology report of his blood and hair samples as evidence of chronic drug use.
The report recommended that Morales be terminated, and the deputy was informed of the results on Jan. 4, 2024. Documents show that Morales resigned Feb. 2 that same year.
He voluntarily surrendered his peace officer certification this month, according to the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.
Speaking of his colleagues who sought therapy after he nearly died, Morales said in an internal interview that he wanted to “apologize to them so bad, but I can’t. I’m not that strong bro.”
He went on to apologize to his partner and the Sheriff’s Office.
“That’s why I did it in that bathroom,” he said. “I didn’t want the public to see me.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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