UPDATE: Why the deceased was in custody (see end of post) . . .
An Orange County Jail inmate died while under a hospital's care, according to a very brief statement from the Orange County Sheriff's Department that follows after the jump. Gregorio Torres was 43.
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SHERIFF-CORONER DEPARTMENT
COUNTY OF ORANGE
CALIFORNIASANDRA HUTCHENS
SHERIFF-CORONER07-23-10
PRESS RELEASE
IN-CUSTODY DEATH APPEARS FROM NATURAL CAUSESOrange County Jail inmate Gregorio Torres, 43, died Thursday shortly before 6 p.m. at Western Medical Center in Anaheim. He had been hospitalized since July 4, 2010 due to preexisting medical conditions. His death appears to be from natural causes.
The Orange County District Attorney is investigating, as is policy in all deaths of those in the custody of the Sheriff's Department.
UPDATE: The preexisting medical condition remains a mystery, but the Orange County Register's Salvador Hernandez sheds light on when Torres was jailed, where and his arrest record:
Torres had several run-ins with police, having been arrested on multiple occasions of alcohol related charges, such as drinking in public, driving under the influence, and being in possession of an open alcoholic container.
Torres also had faced charges of burglary, theft and vandalism in the past.
Court records show he also had two cases pending with charges of unlawful consumption of alcohol and theft.Arrest logs for the Orange County Sheriff's Department show Torres was taken into custody on June 4, and he was being housed at Theo Lacy Jail.
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.