CASTROVILLE MAN TAKEN OFF LIFE SUPPORT AFTER BEING STUNNED WITH TASER

A 27-year-old Castroville man is dead after being taken off life
support at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital on Tuesday, a week after
he was stunned with a Taser twice by Monterey County sheriff's
deputies on top of a roof in Castroville.

Jaime Coronel, who was known at Moss Landing Middle School and North
Monterey County High School as Johnny Teran, suffered a heart attack
and was declared brain dead earlier this week.

His mother, Elvira Teran, took him off life support on Tuesday
afternoon at a doctor's urging.

"My poor Johnny," the 54-year-old mother said in Spanish inside the
house where Coronel was born and raised, across from Elkhorn Slough
on Capagna Way in rural North Monterey County. "He was the youngest
of my four boys, and he was a good boy. I still can't believe that
he's gone, and that they had to kill him.

"I just can't believe it."

Coronel, who had a criminal background and had served short stints in
jail and prison for drug possession and resisting arrest, was stunned
with the Taser minutes after midnight on Jan. 24.

According to sheriff's reports, Coronel was allegedly fighting with a
pair of deputies on the roof of a house in the 11300 block of Del
Monte Avenue when the deputies decided to use the Taser.

Coronel's death is the third in the past two years involving a Taser gun
in Monterey County. The other two occurred after Seaside and Salinas
police officers used their Tasers in separate cases that involved violent
suspects, according to the Sheriff's Department.

The neighbor who called 911 after spotting Coronel prowling in his
back yard said Coronel was "out of it," and yelled the only way the
deputies were going to arrest him was by killing him.

"He was kicking them and punching at them and rolling around on the
roof, and saying all sorts of things, like 'obscenity the United
States,' " said the neighbor, who did not want to be identified for
fear of retaliation.

"I was surprised he never fell off the roof," he said.

A toxicology test found cocaine and methamphetamine in Coronel's
blood stream, said Alan Wheelus, a sheriff's spokesman.

An autopsy on the cause of death is pending.

"I was a deputy coroner for eight years before we started using
Tasers, and I've seen deaths very similar to these where the suspects
have been using drugs," said Wheelus. "And when you're using these
drugs and your heart is going a mile a minute, and when you get into
a struggle, well, there's only so much your heart can take."

Coronel's mother, however, said she wishes the deputies hadn't used
the Taser, which is capable of delivering 50,000 volts of electricity
to the body.

"Just because my boy was telling them they were going to have to kill
him in order to arrest him doesn't mean they had to do it," she said.

According to procedure, the Taser is to be used when the lives of
both the suspect and the deputies are thought to be in danger, which
Wheelus said was the case with Coronel.

"The guy was up on the roof and that's what put the crimp into
everything," Wheelus said. "If he was on the lawn or on the ground,
then that would have been a different scenario. But everybody was in
danger while he was rolling around on the roof."

Funeral arrangements are pending, but Coronel's mother said her son
would probably be buried in Watsonville and services would take place
in Castroville over the weekend.

Coronel is survived by his wife, Stephanie Lizaola, 26, and three
daughters: Jennifer, 6, Briana, 4 and Angela, 8.