SANTA ANA — Orange County sheriff’s deputies today were investigating the suicide of a man who triggered an alarm when he went through an emergency exit at the Santa Ana courthouse and jumped to his death from the 11th floor of the high-rise.

Two years ago, a convicted child molester went through another emergency door and jumped to his death from the ninth floor of the same building.

The man who killed himself Friday, identified as 48-year-old Gilbert Castro Ruiz, had a criminal history but had no pending cases against him, the Orange County Register reported. He apparently had no reason to be in the courthouse other than to commit suicide, police said. Ruiz set off an emergency door exit alarm when he went on the 11th-floor balcony at 700 W. Civic Center Drive about 12:50 p.m., according to Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna.

Orange County sheriff’s deputies rushed to the balcony and saw Ruiz preparing to jump. They tried to talk him down and at one point managed to get close enough to grab him, but he broke free and flung himself over the railing, Bertagna said.

Two deputies suffered minor injuries in the scuffle and went to a hospital to be checked out, Bertagna said.

On March 4, 2008, 52-year-old Carlos Eduardo Tello leaped to his death from a ninth-floor balcony several hours after he was convicted of felony child molestation. He had threatened suicide when the case against him was filed in 2006, court officials said.

Like Ruiz did Friday, Tello went through a door with an alarm on it, and he told a bailiff who responded he could not stop him from jumping. A suicide note was found on Tello’s body.

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