A local coroner has announced that a star college running back turned California cop died of a fentanyl overdose last month.
De’Jon Packer, a 24-year-old newbie with the San Jose Police Department and ex-college football star, was found unresponsive during a welfare check at his Milpitas residence on March 13.
He was pronounced dead on the scene by firefighters and his fellow officers.
According to NBC Bay Area, despite his family claiming that he was heavily against illegal drugs, the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner confirmed he died of fentanyl toxicity.
His death now remains under investigation by Milpitas police amid allegations that he’d partied with other police officers the night before.
San Jose Police Chief Anthony Mata said his department is cooperating with the Milpitas investigation, adding that it doesn’t condone drug use.
He said the department is now offering substance abuse prevention training for its officers as well as emotional support services, and he said in a statement to NBC Bay Area that they need to be aware of the fact that they’re not unsusceptible to problems that plague society, in this case, substance abuse, and he said that as humans, they’re not perfect, and mistakes will be made.
Family spokesperson Patrice Barrera told Mercury News that the Packer family were in shock and heartbroken upon learning of the cause of his death, saying there was no proof he was involved in illegal drugs, and that he was heavily against it, as evidenced by his chosen profession, and that it was their understanding that even the slightest trace of fentanyl was lethal and could cause harm, and that their family was following the Milpitas Police Department’s investigation of the circumstances surrounding Packer’s demise.
She added that Packer entered the San Jose Police Department to make a difference in his community, but that beyond all that De’Jon was amazing, and brought good to the world and left a positive impact everywhere he went and on everyone that he met, and that was his legacy, not this.
The night before Packer’s death, sources with direct knowledge of the case told NBC Bay Area he was at a party with fellow police officers.
Those sources said the officers concerned could encounter an internal investigation and added that a criminal investigation may also be in the works, and in his statement, Mata said any allegations of illicit drug use by a San Jose police officer was concerning.
This is an awful tragedy because this young man had a great life ahead of him, and now it’s been cut short by his death.
There are many reasons he might have had fentanyl in his bloodstream, perhaps if he was drinking his drink might have been spiked by someone, and that definitely needs investigating, or perhaps he went out on a boy’s night out and found out that some of the people that he worked with were doing something they shouldn’t have been and they didn’t want to get caught and let’s face it they would have been close enough to him to slip a mickey into his glass. Either that, or he was really good at hiding his addiction from his family and friends, but I’m actually leaning towards the possibility that he was inadvertently exposed to the fentanyl.
What anyone thinks it all looks positively suspect, but we will all have to wait and see what the outcome is, but if he was killed I doubt there will be a proper investigation, and it will all be swept under the rug.
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