The Fullerton Police Department Friday released video from body-worn cameras of the early morning arrest of a 46-year-old homeless man holding a smoldering pizza box who died in custody.
An officer on patrol encountered Jose Luis Naranjocortez at about 12:30 a.m. April 20 in Lemon Park when it was closed, Sgt. Ryan O’Neil said in the report posted on the department’s YouTube channel.
O’Neil said Naranjocortez “spoke illogically and nonsensically,” but moments later obeyed the officer’s orders to sit on a curb.
Body-worn camera footage of the arrest showed Naranjocortez complaining he was not on probation and accusing the officer of “giving me tuberculosis.”
Naranjocortez can also be heard, “Those little creeps, they bug me.”
The officer told him, “When you approach me with something that’s on fire that’s a problem.”
Naranjocortez responded, “But, damn, I gotta find a place to stay.”
When he was told the park was closed, he responded, “I know. I’m trying to get out.”
As officers arrived and attempted to search him for weapons he struggled with them and bit one officer on a forearm, according to the report.
“He continued to be combative after he was restrained,” O’Neil said.
Because he spat on the officers they placed a “spitting hood” on him made of “breathable mesh,” O’Neil said.
As the officers worked to hobble him with a restraint, he said, “You’re giving me tuberculosis, sir… No, you can’t eat me, dude.”
Naranjocortez continuously grunted and groaned after he was bound up and the officers discussed what to book him for.
One officer recognized him from prior contacts and said, “He’s homeless.” She recalled his last name, but not his first and when she asked him what his name was he grunted.
As his brother showed up at the scene, officers shooed him away and later arrested him, O’Neil said.
The officers repeatedly asked Naranjocortez to stop struggling.
“The less you move the less we have to put pressure on you,” one of the officers told him.
As about 10 officers stood around him, paramedics arrived about 12:50 a.m. and determined he was in medical distress.
“Is he still breathing?” an officer said.
One paramedic asked the officers to take the handcuffs off of Naranjocortez and began to try to revive him and removed the hood at 12:53 a.m.
Naranjocortez was pronounced dead at a hospital. The cause of death is undetermined, O’Neil said.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office will review the arrest to determine if the officers violated the law, which is routine for in-custody deaths, according to O’Neil.
Naranjocortez told officers he had just gotten out of jail on April 11. That same day he pleaded guilty to violating a protective/stay away order and possession of drug paraphernalia, both misdemeanors, according to court records.
Naranjocortez had a past criminal history that included voluntary manslaughter, O’Neil said.
Naranjocortez was arrested in 2012 in the Sept. 30, 1995, killing of 22-year-old Buddy Sifuentes and the wounding of two others in the 2000 block of South Hickory Street, Santa Ana police reported. The victim was shot because he was in a rival gang, police said.
Naranjocortez also pleaded guilty April 15, 2024, to misdemeanor counts of assault with a deadly weapon and inflicting injury on an elder adult, according to court records.