Jason Jesus Gomez was taken off life support Tuesday night, his brother says. Family says Gomez was trying to get his life together.

SANTA ANA – Six days after a 35-year-old Anaheim construction worker turned himself over to authorities, he was brain dead following a violent altercation with Orange County sheriff's deputies who used a Taser gun to restrain him.

Jason Jesus Gomez, the father of a 1-year-old daughter, died late Tuesday after his family decided to remove him from life support. He had been in a coma since the March 25 incident at a county jail and died at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana at 7:50 p.m., said his brother, John Caresio.

The death is being investigated by the District Attorney's Office and is also the subject of an independent probe by a Los Angeles jail watchdog who was hired by the Sheriff's Department.

Gomez reportedly assaulted a nurse administering medications to him in the Intake and Release Center, injuring her arm, and then spat on deputies, triggering the use of force.

Gomez's family was left wondering Wednesday why a man who reported to jail on a promise to clean up his life would have been combative in jail. The mother of Gomez's daughter, Sage, told him that she would allow visitation if he cleared his record on a probation violation, relatives said.

Even as the county coroner scheduled an autopsy for today, Gomez's family planned to hire a private pathologist. Caresio said there were about a half dozen marks on each of Gomez's hands, apparently from a stun gun. Family members were being kept in the dark about how his brother got those marks and how he became brain dead, he said.

"Right now, they've hushed-hushed this and they aren't going to tell us anything," Caresio said.

He admitted that his brother had earlier brushes with law enforcement, for things like driving under the influence, violating a restraining order and having a gun. But, he said, none of those crimes should have resulted in a death sentence.

"Anything personal has nothing to do with what is going on," Caresio said. "What needs to be found out is why he died in that facility. All he wanted was to get everything cleared up and just move on with his life and see his kid."

The death again prompted concerns about the management of the county's jails, as the Sheriff's Department continues to react to the October 2006 killing of inmate John Chamberlain in the Theo Lacy Facility. An 8,000-page grand jury report is set to be released Monday and the panel just last month chastised the department for violating a 20-year-old protocol that calls for the District Attorney's Office to investigate jail deaths.

Acting Sheriff Jack Anderson called members of the Board of Supervisors with the news of Gomez's injuries last week, said Supervisor John Moorlach, and then followed up with a confidential memo Monday. Moorlach said he's glad that the board recently approved an Office of Independent Review, which will monitor the jails, and that he is pleased that Anderson has hired Michael Gennaco, a Los Angeles jail watchdog, to investigate Gomez's death.

"I've had a burden about this matter since I got here," Moorlach said of his concerns about the Sheriff's Department. "The Chamberlain death had a pretty major impact with me personally. Some things take time. So we're dealing with it."

Anderson's memo reported to supervisors that an unidentified inmate was in a "vegetative state" after the March 25 incident and that next of kin had been notified because of fears that Gomez would die. Anderson, who is in the running for an appointment by supervisors for interim sheriff, also mentioned that the district attorney was investigating the case.

"Transparency is of great importance," Anderson's memo says.

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Jason Gomez on a recent desert trip with his dog. Gomez died after an altercation with sheriff's deputies in jail.

PHOTO COURTESY THE GOMEZ FAMILY

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