April 3, 2007

Jury Recommends Death for Gang Member Convicted of Murdering Sheriff’s Deputy

NORWALK – A Norwalk Superior Court jury recommended today that a Hawaiian Gardens gang member be sentenced to death for murdering Sheriff’s Deputy Luis Gerardo (Jerry) Ortiz outside an apartment during an investigation into a 2005 shooting.

“This is the kind of person and the kind of crime that the death penalty was made for,” said District Attorney Steve Cooley

Jurors deliberated a day before recommending that 29-year-old Jose Luis Orozco be executed. Formal sentencing was scheduled for May 3 before trial judge Philip Hickok.

The same jury on March 20 convicted Orozco of the first-degree murder of the Sheriff’s gang enforcement deputy, who was gunned down on June 24, 2005. The jury found true the special circumstances of murder of a peace officer intentionally killed while performing his duties, murder to avoid arrest, street gang murder and lying in wait. He also was convicted of attempted murder, possession of a firearm by a felon and all allegations that the defendant personally used a handgun to commit the crimes.

Deputy Ortiz was investigating a June 20, 2005, Hawaiian Gardens shooting in which Orozco was a suspect. He spotted the defendant about 3 p.m. on June 24, 2005, and chased him to the apartment complex in the 12000 block of East 223rd Street. Orozco ran into an apartment and hid behind the door. When the deputy came to the door, Orozco shot him, and then fled. Deputy Ortiz, with the Sheriff’s Safe Streets Bureau, was 35 years old.

Orozco was arrested five buildings away on 223rd Street shortly before midnight. A .38-caliber revolver was recovered. He has remained in custody without bail since then.

The shooting that Deputy Ortiz was investigating was of a man who was shot in the back while doing yard work at a home in the 22000 block of Joliet Avenue in Hawaiian Gardens. The victim survived and the jury convicted him of the attempted murder.