A 46-year-old man who allegedly lit a pizza box on fire in the parking lot of a Fullerton park was taken down and held by officers for about 15 minutes before he stopped breathing and paramedics tried to help him, recently released body-worn camera video from the department shows.
Jose Luis Naranjo-Cortez’s cause of death was still pending, police said during the 30-minute long video released Friday, May 30. He was a father of six and known by at least some Fullerton police officers as being mentally unstable, they said on body-worn camera footage.
An officer suffered a bite to the forearm from Naranjo-Cortez during the struggle.
An officer patrolling the area of Lemon Park, 701 S. Lemon St., just after 12:30 a.m. on April 20, spotted Naranjo-Cortez appearing to hold a box that was smoldering, police said.
The officer pulled up, got out of the vehicle and told Naranjo-Cortez multiple times to put the box — a Costco pizza box — on the ground and sit down on a curb.
“You’re giving me tuberculosis over here when you do that,” Naranjo-Cortez tells the officer at one point before the officer orders him again to sit down.
“Look at you, wow, you’re bad,” Naranjo-Cortez says after sitting on the curb.
Naranjo-Cortez also tells officers he’s not on probation, claims he was trying to leave the park and claims that someone else started the fire.
Eventually, another officer arrives and both try to stand Naranjo-Cortez up to check for weapons, but Naranjo-Cortez refuses to stand up, asks why, makes illogical statements, including “You can’t eat me!” and struggles with the officers as they pull him to the ground. While one of the officers attempts to control his left arm, Naranjo-Cortez bites him, leading the officer to punch the suspect twice in the head in return.
Officers restrained him with handcuffs, a belt on his legs and a mesh bag over his head, called a “spit bag,” which police described as a breathable mesh that allows a suspect “to breathe and see without restriction,” the video shows.
The officers then held Naranjo-Cortez on his right side while he yelled and moved around for about 12 minutes while continuing to yell and shift around, according to timestamps on the body-worn camera footage. The officers, while all standing around him nearby, tell Naranjo-Cortez to relax and stop moving.
During this time, Naranjo-Cortez’s brother arrived and yelled “Leave him alone, that’s my brother,” leading some of the officers to rush over and detain him. “I’m not doing anything,” he says.
At 12:51 a.m., a paramedic asks if Naranjo-Cortez is still breathing and appears to check for a pulse. The paramedics take off the mesh bag and after removing the handcuffs, begin to attempt life-saving measures before taking Naranjo-Cortez to a hospital, where he died.
The officer who was bitten through a long sleeve shirt, was also treated on scene by paramedics, police said.
Mary Naranjo-Cortez, more than a week after his death, said she was seeking legal assistance to file a claim against the city while saying she believed the officers used “unnecessary excessive force,” causing her brother’s death.
Whether that claim had been filed as of Friday was not immediately known.
Family members have claimed he suffered from schizophrenic episodes and was unable to keep up with medication after becoming homeless in November.
Mary Naranjo-Cortez asked why a mental health professional wasn’t called to the scene and said neither the police nor the hospital would tell her what happened.
The brother, Miguel Naranjo-Cortez, said he had left his brother at the park on his bike, but had returned 10 minutes later after seeing multiple police cars race past him and saw eight to 10 officers “stacked on top” of Jose.
Police said Jose Naranjo-Cortez had prior convictions including voluntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon, among others. A family member also had an active restraining order against him, police said.
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