By Daniel Hunt
The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. — Law enforcement officers fired more than 30 rounds last month at a former Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy wanted for killing his son after a high-speed freeway chase ended in a crash and tense standoff, as deputies believed the man was pointing a rifle at them, according to body-worn and in-car videos released Friday night by the Sheriff’s Office.
The ex-deputy, Marvin Morales, 40, was shot and killed Dec. 2 after authorities said he fatally stabbed his 11-year-old son at the family’s Elk Grove home, fled the scene and led officers on a pursuit that reached speeds over 100 mph on Interstate 5.
Given Morales’ law enforcement training, military background and reported access to weapons — along with his recent dismissal from the Sheriff’s Office and history of drug abuse — authorities said they treated the pursuit as a high-risk encounter from the outset.
The edited video package, narrated by Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Amar Gandhi, shows deputies confronting Morales moments after his SUV went airborne and crashed in an embankment along I-5 near Highway 12 in San Joaquin County. Deputies can be heard repeatedly ordering him to raise his hands and stop reaching into his vehicle.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, Morales pulled out what deputies believed was a rifle and pointed it toward them. Two Sacramento County K-9 deputies fired multiple rounds, and officers from other agencies also discharged their weapons in the foggy Delta standoff.
Gandhi and the video do not disclose how many shots were fired — a review by The Sacramento Bee counted at least 35 distinct gunshots in one of the raw body-worn camera clips, though the exact number was difficult to determine due to overlapping fire.
Morales was struck, a K-9 was deployed when he did not respond to commands and deputies later approached to render aid. Morales was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
What Morales had reached for remains unknown. In the 15-minute video, the Sheriff’s Office described what Morales reached for as an object and “pulled out what appeared to be a rifle and pointed it toward deputies.” An image displayed in the video shows what appears to be a black, leather carrying case in the shape of a rifle — with a stock and long barrel space — though its exact nature is not clearly identifiable from the image alone.
But, as typical with officer-involved shootings of people may have been unarmed, the California Department of Justice continues to investigate the shooting incident. The Sheriff’s Office said its internal review was also ongoing.
Chronology laid out in video
The video release details the string of events that began shortly after 8 a.m. Dec. 2, when Elk Grove police were called to a home in the 7600 block of Ferrell Way after the boy’s mother reported seeing an assault unfold on security cameras inside the house.
Officers found the 11-year-old — identified by coroner’s officials as Mar Aris Untalan Morales — with multiple stab wounds. He later died at a hospital. A 6-year-old child in the home was not injured.
Marvin Morales had left before officers arrived, Gandhi explains in the video. Elk Grove police issued an alert to neighboring law enforcement agencies, telling them that a gun safe at the home appeared to have been emptied and that several firearms registered to Morales were missing, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Flock license plate readers operated by Elk Grove later detected Morales’ vehicle traveling south out of town. Authorities believed Morales may have been heading toward the Delta region, Gandhi says in the video.
Just before 9:30 a.m., a plainclothes investigative unit from another agency located Morales’ SUV on southbound Interstate 5 near Laguna Boulevard. At about the same time, Sheriff Jim Cooper independently spotted the vehicle and can be heard on dispatch audio giving its location during a segment of the video.
Two Sacramento sheriff’s K-9 units quickly joined the pursuit and attempted a traffic stop, according to the video. In the next clip, Morales is seen in dashcam video from one of the deputies accelerating away, leading deputies and officers from Elk Grove, the California Highway Patrol and others on a chase that the Sheriff’s Office said exceeded 100 mph.
Video shows Morales weaving through traffic, driving on the shoulder to pass slower vehicles and continuing despite heavy traffic and fog that limited visibility. At one point, the CHP deploys a spike strip to stop Morales’ vehicle, popping at least one tire on the Nissan Armada, which featured a license plate holder that read “If you knew better, you would do better.”
Fifteen minutes after the pursuit began, and in San Joaquin County, Morales lost control of his SUV roughly a mile and a half south of Highway 12. The vehicle went airborne, crashed down an embankment and came to rest after colliding with a tree.
Shooting after crash
Body camera footage shows deputies exiting their vehicles with rifles drawn and issuing repeated commands for Morales to show his hands and walk toward them, the video shows.
Authorities said Morales briefly dropped an object, then continued reaching back into his vehicle despite commands to stop. Deputies said he then retrieved what they believed was a rifle and pointed it toward them.
At that point, two K-9 deputies fired multiple rounds. Other law enforcement officers also fired, the Sheriff’s Office said, without further detail.
After Morales fell to the ground and did not respond to commands, several deputies and officers, working as a team, deployed a K-9 and then moved in to secure him and provide medical aid, the video shows.
The Sheriff’s Office did not say in the video that a firearm was recovered at the scene. In cases where a person shot by law enforcement is unarmed, the state Department of Justice is required to investigate following the 2020 passage of Assembly Bill 1506, one of several laws enacted in the wake of high-profile police killings such as the 2018 shooting of Stephon Clark by Sacramento police.
Morales was a former sheriff’s deputy
Morales was a Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy from 2017 until February 2024, when he resigned after internal affairs investigators recommended he be fired for dishonesty, The Sacramento Bee reported in the weeks after his dismissal.
He became the subject of an internal investigation after he overdosed on confiscated drugs while on duty in October 2023 at the Sheriff’s Office’s Central Division station in south Sacramento.
Investigators said Morales admitted to taking and smoking drugs that were later found to contain fentanyl. He told investigators he struggled with his mental health and wanted to die by suicide, according to a 468-page internal affairs report previously released by the Sheriff’s Office.
A hair drug test showed evidence of chronic drug use, casting doubt on Morales’ account, investigators said.
Morales surrendered his peace officer certification in March 2024 and had no law enforcement authority at the time of the Dec. 2 incident, the Sheriff’s Office said in the video.
“With Morales’ background in law enforcement, having been trained and proficient in law enforcement tactics and communications, along with his military service and familiarization, expertise and access to weapons, law enforcement remained cognizant of the heightened level of potential danger if and when he was confronted,” Gandhi says in the video.
The Sheriff’s Office released the edited video — along with raw body-worn and in-car camera footage and 911 calls and dispatch audio — under its use-of-force disclosure policy, adopted following the passage of AB748 in 2018, which mandates the public release of video from law enforcement critical incidents within 45 days. Cooper, who was elected sheriff in 2022 after serving eight years in the state Assembly representing Elk Grove, ultimately voted against the bill following several Senate amendments.
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