A California police officer who overdosed on stolen fentanyl said he thinks he should not have been fired.
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Claudiu Murzea inhaled a line of the powdered drug — which he said he took from a suspect during an arrest — because he was suicidal. He did a second line inside the Cathedral City police department, then walked outside and collapsed. A colleague found him and Murzea was rushed to the hospital.
He was fired in July.
“Two sheriff’s investigators showed up at my hospital bed,” Murzea said, via Yahoo News. “I told them: I took the fentanyl to take my own life.”
Murzea was named the department’s officer of the year in 2015. He has opened a worker’s compensation claim and is fighting to retire from the department.
“Everybody knew what I was going through, for nine years,” he said. “All they want is to say I stole drugs and I did them. They threatened me when I asked to go to counseling. They took my career from me.”
As for the counseling, Murzea said he needed it and was indeed told not to go by the police chief.
“I was bullied,” he said. “The chief threatened me when I asked to go to counseling, saying how dare I air the department’s dirty laundry to a counselor.”
He added that fentanyl wasn’t the only drug he took on the day he collapsed. All of it was for the purpose of escape, or worse, he added.
“Nobody takes that much fentanyl and then decides they’re gonna finish the rest of their shift,” Murzea said. “That’s what they’re trying to sell, that oh, he accidentally overdosed. I took so much fentanyl, it took seven Narcan shots to revive me. I was on a drip for like eight hours. I don’t know how I survived.”