A former Sacramento County Sheriff's deputy who was shot dead during a police chase after he fatally stabbed his 11-year-old son on Tuesday at their Elk Grove home resigned last year after he overdosed on confiscated drugs while on duty.
Marvin Morales, the former deputy, stabbed his son Tuesday morning before fleeing his family's Ferrell Way home in Elk Grove, according to authorities. The Elk Grove Police Department said a 6-year-old child was also present at the home but not harmed.
Morales reportedly led law enforcement officials in a high-speed chase later in the morning, before his vehicle crashed along Interstate 5 in San Joaquin County where deputies shot him during a confrontation. He was wounded in the shooting and taken to a hospital where he later died, according to the California Highway Patrol.
As reported by The Sacramento Bee, Morales worked as a patrol deputy and resigned on Feb. 2, 2024 following an internal affairs investigation that recommended he be fired on grounds of dishonesty. The incident involved Morales confiscating drugs, later determined to be fentanyl, from a man he stopped on Oct. 24, 2023 at a Shell gas station on Stockton Boulevard.
The man told Morales he had been smoking methamphetamine. The deputy had interacted with the man before, and he knew the man used drugs, Morales told investigators. Morales said the drugs appeared "dirty," so he believed they could be mixed with fentanyl, according to the report.
He also admitted he took the drugs from the man and smoked them in a bathroom later that day at the sheriff's Central Division station on 65th Street and Florin Road. Other deputies found Morales overdosing in the bathroom and administered naloxone in an effort to reverse the overdose.
Morales survived after he was taken to a hospital. He told investigators he ingested the drug because he wanted to die by suicide and struggled with his mental health, according to the report.
He also told investigators that he confiscated a pipe while on duty and smoked methamphetamine, coating the pipe three or four times in the months leading up to the October 2023 fentanyl overdose. It was for a "hit of energy" while he procrastinated completing reports into his investigations, according to the report.
The internal affairs investigators cast doubt on the truth behind Morales' claims, saying in the report that a drug test of his hair showed "chronic use" consistent with a person who uses drugs throughout their life. Morales said his mental health had been deteriorating from trauma he suffered while on the job and serving in the Middle East, according to the report. He would cry before coming to work and isolated himself from family.
