Suspect who mysteriously died in scooter robbery ID’D by coroner

SAN JOSE >> A suspect in a scooter robbery who was found dead minutes after the crime was reported has been identified as Isai Lopez, 42, of San Jose.

The incident — which San Jose police are investigating as a suspicious death — occurred around 3:47 a.m. Tuesday, when officers arrived at the La Placita Tropicana shopping center in response to a reported robbery.

The victim told police that three men had stolen his scooter, and pointed out Lopez, who was lying on the ground a short distance away.

As police handcuffed him, they realized Lopez was unresponsive and called San Jose Fire Department to the scene.

Personnel could not revive him, and Lopez was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The circumstances of Lopez’s death were not immediately clear, police said, and his cause of death is pending, according to the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-coroner’s Office.

Police have not said whether Lopez was already dead when he was handcuffed.

But because he was determined to be unresponsive after officers had technically begun apprehending him, authorities invoked the county’s in-custody death protocol. This spurs a joint investigation led by the SJPD homicide unit and Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office and monitored by the police internal affairs division, City Attorney’s Office, and San Jose’s Office of the Independent Police Auditor.