Articles
E.C. murder witness gunned down
Friday, September 28, 2007 12:46 AM CDT
BY STEVE ZABROSKI
HAMMOND | A key witness in this summer's murder trial of a self-described street gang member was himself gunned down on Wednesday night.
Luis Joel Ortiz, 22, was shot once in the upper right chest at 11:30 p.m. outside his apartment in the 1200 block of 150th Street and declared dead at St. Margaret Mercy Healthcare Centers an hour later.
Neighbors described Ortiz as a "nice guy" who had lived in the one-story building on the southeast corner of Columbia Avenue since July.
Residents said Ortiz regularly drank beer with other young men in his small apartment, but late Wednesday there was a loud argument, which ended with a man shouting, "No, no," followed by three gunshots.
Hammond Police Chief Brian Miller said there were no suspects or a motive for the killing as of Thursday afternoon.
Ortiz was called to Crown Point for testimony in the July murder trial of Steven Ray Santana, who was charged with firing multiple shots into a 15-year-old boy riding his bicycle a block south of East Chicago Central High School on the city's north side in the summer of 2006.
He told jurors that he saw Santana, then 20 years old, creep out from between parked cars in the 4200 block of Northcote Avenue with a handgun and fire several shots into the back of Rudolf Swisher as the boy rode past.
Santana testified that he was a member of the Imperial Gangsters organization, and that he had been threatened by Ortiz, who he said was a member of the Latin Kings, a rival gang.
Santana denied shooting Swisher, an honor student who was not known to belong to any street gang, but the jury thought otherwise and found him guilty of murder, for which he was sentenced to 62 years in prison.