12 overdose in county jail a month after it stopped screening officers

On Jan. 14, newly elected Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan halted the practice of scanning all jail employees for contraband when they came to work. A month later, the agency revealed that 12 inmates had suffered drug overdoses in February — one fatally — at the women-only Estrella Jail.

The sheriff's office insists those two things are not related.

Sheriff’s office spokesperson Joaquin Enriquez said “with 100% certainty” that the fentanyl-laced drugs that caused the overdoses were “absolutely not” smuggled in by corrections officers. Citing an ongoing investigation, Enriquez declined to provide specific details on how that conclusion was reached but said it was based on jail intel.

The first overdoses were discovered on Feb. 6, when corrections officers found eight inmates suffering from overdose symptoms. Then, at 1 a.m. on Feb. 14, they found another four experiencing overdoses. They were transferred to the hospital, where one inmate died. The sheriff’s has not identified that person.

“We believe at this point in our investigation that these two incidents might be related,” Enriquez said. “We can’t say for sure right now.”

Enriquez told reports that 12 overdoses in a single week is an alarmingly large number for the jails, though he did not have information on how many overdoses had happened at Estrella Jail and county-wide in 2024. Phoenix New Times submitted a public records request for that data from previous years, but has not yet received it.

How did the fentanyl get into the prison? “Body cavities,” according to Enriquez. He said the sheriff’s office has identified several suspects that it believes “are complicit” in smuggling in the drugs, one of whom was booked into the jail on Feb. 4, just two days before the first overdoses. After the Feb. 14 overdoses, detention officers used a drug-sniffing dog, which found a ziplock bag of white powder in an inmate’s body cavity. That powder tested positive for fentanyl.

Enriquez suggested the drugs slipped in because “it’s almost physically impossible to do these searches on these women. It violates so many things, and we understand that.” He also said he had seen documentation that some inmates purposefully get booked into jail to sell drugs, though he did not cite any specific examples.

Honor system

Whatever caused the overdoses, just hours after they occurred — but before they’d been made public — an ABC15 revealed that Sheridan had made it easier for corrections officers to smuggle drugs or other forbidden items into the jails.

On Feb. 14, the station published a story detailing concerns from experts and family members of inmates who died by overdose over Sheridan’s Jan. 14 order to stop scanning jail employees.

“For far too long, we’ve treated them like suspects instead of the dedicated professionals they are,” Sheridan said in a video about the policy change. “The facts are the facts. Most of the contraband that comes into our jails doesn’t come from the men and women who served there. Studies show that the majority comes from visitors, mail, and even contractors.”

According to data obtained by ABC15, more than 180 former and current detention officers are on the state’s Brady list of officers with documented dishonesty, criminal activity and corruption concerns. Sheridan is also on that list. An agency spokesperson told the station only 13 current detention officers on the list are still employed by the county.

In 2023, then-Sheriff Paul Penzone announced that the office had arrested one of its own, detention officer Andres Salazar, for his role in smuggling fentanyl and methamphetamines into Lower Buckeye Jail. In March 2024, Salazar was sentenced to two years in prison. After the incident, Penzone also required all detention officers to be scanned upon entering jail facilities.

Sheridan ended that practice, but the sheriff’s office will be scanning some people more often, just not its jail employees. Enriquez said the agency wants to upgrade to X-ray scanners and is already in the process of buying them. He declined to share details on what specific machines the office is eyeing, saying only that another facility in Arizona has them and the sheriff’s office wanted to check them out.

“There is no cost when it comes to the safety of the inmates and our officers in our jails,” Enriquez said. “We know it’s going to be expensive, but it’s something that needs to be done.”

Jail employees will remain on the honor system.

“He trusts his employees,” Enriquez said of Sheridan, “and he’s gonna stand by that.”