A man accused of biting and throwing rocks at three Orange County deputies appeared in court on Friday.
Jorge Luis Lopez Duran, 53, is accused of assaulting the deputies on Thursday when they confronted him about several neighborhood crimes.
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“[It’s] bizarre behavior, so that's generally coded as a suspicious condition disturbance,” Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood said.
Blackwood said Thursday afternoon’s call at the Timbers Manufactured Home Community came as someone was going trailer to trailer, banging on them, throwing bricks, throwing rocks, attempting to get inside and banging on windows.
Authorities charged Duran with three counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer and inflicting serious bodily injury. Duran is expected to be charged with larceny and damage to property.
On Friday, Blackwood escorted Duran into the courtroom. It’s a tactic usually reserved for the highest profile cases.
Blackwood acknowledged the situation could have ended in a worse way.
“Had we not gotten that call, who knows what could have happened?” Blackwood said. “[There were] kids coming home or already home, anyone in the street who encountered him, it could have been much, much worse.
“That’s why we’re there.”
Blackwood described what happened Thursday afternoon.
“He grabbed one or two air-conditioning units like he was going to rip them out of the wall,” Blackwood said.
As deputies arrived on the scene, Blackwood said, “The fight was on. He just erupted.”
Blackwood said there was blood at the scene when he arrived after the deputies had subdued Duran having used a Taser multiple times.
“It was none of his blood,” Blackwood said of Duran. “He had bitten one of my deputy’s hands severely, and he didn’t just bite him and let go. He bit him and he kept biting.”
Blackwood said deputies deployed a Taser twice on Duran to subdue him.
“They subdued him, but they couldn't handcuff him because every time they tried to let go of one to go grab his hands, he would bite,” Blackwood said.
Blackwood said the three deputies are out of the hospital. Two should return to work pretty quickly, but the third is dealing with injuries. The sheriff’s office will need to check on the deputy’s dexterity and the extent of any nerve damage.
“She [one of the deputies] was trying to open his jaw to get him to let go of the deputy who he had clinched … because she could see the damage being done, and he bit her,” Blackwood said.
Blackwood said he’s been asked why there wasn’t more de-escalation.
“When somebody is in that kind of state -- and we were thinking it was methamphetamine because we found methamphetamine on him -- there is no reasoning, and the pain tolerances are through the roof,” Blackwood said.
Blackwood said Durham stands at 5’9” and weighs about 140 pounds.
“What he was doing to them was vicious, but it didn’t rise to the level of deadly force,” Blackwood said.
Duran has had runs-ins with law enforcement in Orange County before. It includes charges of communicating threats and possession of a firearm by a felon. He also has arrests in Georgia and Oklahoma for drugs in the past.
Duran is due to appear in court again for his Orange County charges on April 21.