Deputy David Faiivae’s hands just before he collapsed.

“We had a great story,” says San Diego Sheriff Bill Bore. “We had body cam video — you know, the stuff that’s supposed to clear up confusion about police business — showing Deputy David Faviiae searching a suspicious person’s vehicle, and then collapsing soon after coming into contact with some white residue while not wearing protective gloves. Fentanyl overdoses are skyrocketing all over San Diego county, and this seemed to be just what we needed to really hammer home the point that this drug, even in small quantities, can be lethal. So after we dealt with the medical emergency side of things, we put the video out there as a warning to the community that we’re sworn to protect.”

But then, laments Bore, “all these medical professionals started to pick at the narrative, saying that you can’t overdose on fentanyl just by touching it or even breathing near it. And then it came out that we didn’t actually do a tox screen on Deputy Faviiae when we got him to the hospital. And suddenly, we’ve got a credibility crisis on our hands. No good deed, am I right? So we reassessed. At first, we thought about saying it was covid that he touched — that’s another thing that people definitely need to be warned about — but then we remembered that that’s not how covid works, either. We were getting pretty desperate, and that’s when our department-mandated anti-racism officer came in and saved the day. She said, ‘It was a white residue he talked about handling, wasn’t it? There’s your problem: whiteness. Completely toxic. Poisons everything it touches. What took down David Faviiae? Racism — in its purest, deadliest form.’ She’s a sharp one, she is. We can’t wait to re-share this unfortunate deputy’s story as a warning to the community. An admittedly different warning than our first attempt, but one that’s possibility even more important.”