See the update at the end of this post on the man's death and identification.
ORIGINAL POST, AUG. 26, 9 A.M.: A man who was barefoot and wearing only a T-shirt and shorts ran back and forth across the 55 freeway before he stopped breathing early Sunday, according to police.
The unidentified man was being treated at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana in critical condition, according to Cpl. Anthony Bertagna, the Santa Ana Police spokesman.
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The fellow was seen running across the parking lots of hotels near Dyer Road around 12:30 a.m. before he crawled up the embankment to the southbound freeway at the Dyer overpass.
In fact, police officers saw the man standing at the bridge of the overpass and, thinking he might jump, tried to engage him, Bertagna reportedly told City News Service.
He was later seen running across all five southbound lanes, hopping over to the northbound side and finally lying down in the southbound car-pool lane. Cops really thought they should get the man's attention then, but he started physically fighting with officers before he stopped breathing, according to Bertagna.
After CPR was administered, the man was taken by paramedics to the hospital.
You're probably thinking the same thing that I am, but, no drugs or alcohol were found at the scene, Bertagna reportedly said.
UPDATE, AUG. 27, 11:34 A.M.: The man who stopped breathing while being subdued by police and was later rushed to a local hospital Sunday has died.
Raymond Curtis Runge 44, of Costa Mesa, was taken off life support Monday, according to Santa Ana Police.
Officers say no firearm or Taser was used to subdue Runge.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.
And again, they got away…let’s see if they will be able to get away from the Universal Law of Return, the only and fair penalty, that reaches evil with the evil they deserve. That will be no place to hide, no lies to be told, no way to escape…and it already happened…u just not there yet.