Vista
A 64-year-old man died of apparent alcohol inebriation while he was being arrested by sheriff’s deputies outside his Vista apartment before dawn Wednesday, officials said.
Coroner’s deputies said an autopsy was still pending to determine the cause of death of Thomas Philip Fuentez, whom deputies said was found intoxicated outside his apartment in the 600 block of West California Avenue.
A sheriff’s spokesman said deputies found the partly clad Fuentez sitting in a hallway at his apartment complex about 3 a.m. and arrested him for public drunkenness. Fuentez reportedly lived alone.
According to sheriff’s reports, Fuentez stopped breathing as he was sitting in a sheriff’s squad car while deputies searched his apartment for his clothes.
When deputies returned to the squad car, they found that Fuentez had stopped breathing, the spokesman said.
Efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful, the spokesman said.
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