Maricopa County correctional officer arrested on suspicion of smuggling fentanyl and meth into jail

A Maricopa County correctional officer was arrested Wednesday afternoon on suspicion of attempting to smuggle fentanyl and methamphetamine into the Lower Buckeye Jail.

During a news conference in Phoenix, Sheriff Paul Penzone said deputies had arrested 26-year-old Andres Salazar after placing him on administrative leave. Penzone said Salazar coordinated with an inmate to get nearly 100 pills of fentanyl into the jail.

Salazar has been charged with possession of a narcotic, promoting prison contraband and transport for sale.

Penzone said evidence gathered by investigators suggested it was Salazar's first attempt to smuggle drugs into the jail and that deputies intercepted him in the jail's parking lot.

Penzone condemned Salazar's actions, saying he had tainted the reputations of his former colleagues and would have endangered the lives of those jailed by distributing.

"I'm disgusted," Penzone said. "This young man, whatever led him to make this decision, will now not only lose his career, but most likely the future that he has for himself is definitely going to be hindered in an adverse way."

Penzone said the investigation had been going on for more than four weeks but that deputies waited to arrest Salazar until they had gathered additional evidence. Penzone said someone had paid Salazar $1,000 to bring the drugs into the jail and investigators continued to search for others who may have been involved.

Penzone said Salazar was also found to have falsified overtime slips for shifts he didn't work.

Jared Keenan, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, said it was unfortunately not surprising to learn of the arrest.

“This case is a perfect example that most of the drugs that come into jails are brought in by detention officers and other staff,” Keenan said. “One thing that COVID taught us was that when visitations at jails and prisons were completely shut down, drugs were still prevalent."

Keenan said he was concerned that while the focus should remain on staff members, the measures put in place to attempt to combat illegal drugs getting into the jail could fall more harshly on incarcerated people and their family members.

Keenan said while the reports of overdose-related deaths in the jails are tragic, they are a result of what he called the country’s failed war on drugs.

"We cannot incarcerate our way out of drug use and substance abuse disorder,” Keenan said. “All the problems caused by the increase in fentanyl availability are not despite the drug war, but precisely because of it.”

Penzone plans to add body scanners to jails

During the news conference, Penzone shared his plans to add body scanners to Maricopa County jails that anyone who enters — including correctional staff — would need to go through. Penzone included millimeter-wave scanners often used at airports as an example of what the department might use.

Penzone acknowledged that such a move could be controversial and evoke resistance from employees who feel agency leadership no longer has confidence in them.

"A lot of employees will feel that this is a trust issue — that I'm questioning whether they can be trusted," Penzone said. "That is not at all the case, but we live in a society where humans are flawed and failed and we see good people do bad things and bad things happen. And if we truly want to be a drug-free, safe jail system we have to take every step possible and that means demanding that our employees become comfortable with the idea that we should be checking them as they entered too as well as everyone else."

Penzone acknowledged that the strategy remained in the planning stages as he and others deliberate what kind of scanners would be the most effective at identifying contraband with the least disruption in operations. Penzone said the agency would have to hire additional staff to operate the scanners and suggested possibly staggering correctional officers' shifts to avoid a long line of people waiting to be scanned.

The sheriff said MCSO is looking at scanners that cost between $150,000 to $250,000 and was still deliberating over how many it would need to install across its five jails. Penzone said the money would come from the agency's detention fund but has spoken to county officials about potentially receiving additional funding.

It remained unclear exactly how long it would take for Penzone to install scanners in the county jails, but the sheriff remained resolute that such a future was not an "if" but a "when."

"Short of the Lord above interfering with me being able to execute this — and if I get some opposition it's unforeseen — I fully am committed to implementing this equipment and this process as soon as possible," he said.

Deaths in Arizona prisons and jails

At least two deaths of incarcerated men were reported in the past 24 hours — one in Pima county jail and another in a Florence prison.

On Dec. 16, Robert Tsalabounis, 38, was found unresponsive in his cell and later pronounced dead. No signs of trauma and no suspicious circumstances were found by detectives who visited the jail, according to the Sheriff's Office. The cause of his death was being investigated.

In November, a family filed a lawsuit against Pima County and other officials after Sylvestre Inzunza, 18, overdosed twice on Fentanyl within the same week in the Pima County Adult Detention Complex and died.

The lawsuit alleges Pima County Adult Detention Center was woefully understaffed, cultivating an environment where guards and medical staff failed to check on Inzunza’s condition for hours despite being in a pod designated for inmates who are detoxing.

Across the state, The Arizona Republic found that, as of 2020, at least once a month, someone dies during an arrest or in a county jail. At least 64 cases in which a person died in a county jail or during an arrest between Jan. 1, 2017, and Aug. 4, 2020. On average, that means it happens every 21 days, based on The Republic's data.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Correctional officer suspected of smuggling drugs into jail in Phoenix