Deputy Jerry Ortiz’s Killer Guilty!

Long time readers will know that a fellow Deputy and friend was shot and killed a few years ago.  I have posts here, here and here about Jerry. 

About 15 minutes ago the jury just returned a guilty verdict on all counts.  No news organizations have written this fact yet, heard about the verdict from fellow Deputies.

Hopefully the killer goes to his death.

UPDATE

Found an article printed about 2 hours ago prior to the verdict:

Defense attorneys offered no arguments Monday to the prosecution’s claims that their client, Jose Luis Orozco, killed a sheriff’s deputy in a calculated manner for fame and glory in his gang.

They offered no explanation for Deputy District Attorney Lowell Anger’s charge that their 29-year-old client also tried to kill another man just a few days before allegedly ambushing Deputy Jerry Ortiz on June 24, 2005, and that Orozco targeted the other victim – who is black – simply because of the color of his skin.

Anger described in detail the slain deputy’s final moments for the jury; how the officer was being watched by the armed defendant through a crack in a door.

The prosecutor talked about the alleged killer knowing full well that two girls, a 6-year-old and an 8-year-old, were only a few feet away watching the scene unfold.

"(Orozco) chose the one place … that Deputy Ortiz was vulnerable," Anger told the jury. "He had one shot, one chance if he was to kill Deputy Jerry Ortiz, he was going to have to strike him in the head."

When it came time for the defense to present its closing arguments, Attorney Robin Yanes said he waived the right.

Judge Philip Hickok excused the jury from the courtroom to ask Orozco if he was comfortable with the unorthodox decision. The defendant told the judge he had discussed it with his other attorney, Stan Perlo, and agreed.

"OK, I’ll accept that," Hickok said before calling the jury back into the courtroom to give them instructions before they began deliberations.

[…]The jury, made up of five women and seven men, must decide whether Orozco is guilty of one count of murder in the gang investigator’s slaying, along with the special circumstance allegations of murder of a peace officer, murder while lying in wait, murder to avoid arrest and carrying out the crime to benefit his gang.

Orozco has also been charged with one count of attempted murder, stemming from the shooting that occurred four days before the deputy was killed and two counts of being a felon in possession of a gun.

Anger asked the jury to "do what is right and what is just," by delivering guilty verdicts on all counts.

The case, he said, is unusual in that it provided a mountain of evidence condemning the defendant.

Among the dozens of witnesses called to the stand were five eyewitnesses to the shooting, including the two girls, who are now 8 and 10.

They all testified that Orozco was hiding behind the open front door of an apartment in the 12200 block of East 223rd Street when the deputy was shot through a crack in that door, Anger argued.

[…]Perhaps most damning was Orozco’s videotaped conversation with a fellow gang member and gang associate while in jail at the Bellflower courthouse, just a few days after the slaying.

The tape showed Orozco and his friends talking about the shooting and his efforts to destroy evidence. He told them he urinated on his hands – which he believed would remove all gunshot residue – and he had tossed out the bullet casing from the single deadly shot, replacing it in the gun’s cylinder with a live round.

The spent shell was found outside a home a few doors down from the crime scene, where Orozco was found hiding in a bathtub several hours after the shooting. Tests showed it matched the slug taken from Ortiz’s skull during the autopsy.

During the jail cell conversation, one of the defendant’s friends pointed out that the eyewitnesses – the mother and the two girls – were also a serious problem for him.

"Yeah, put her in her grave," Anger said in his closing argument, reading Orozco’s words from a transcript of the taped conversation.

"He saw her as … `the b—-‘ who will put him away," Anger said at another point, noting the defendant went on to include the entire family in the death threat that was caught on tape.

Other witnesses – friends of the defendant, including a fellow gang member – testified that Orozco had bragged about shooting the attempted murder victim on June 20 and said Orozco often talked about killing a police officer and "going balls out."

He wanted to make a name for himself in the Mexican Mafia – a powerful prison-based gang that controls almost all Southern California Hispanic gangs – and to put his own gang on the map, according to their testimony.

The local gang clearly endorsed the killing, which sent a clear message that they would stop at nothing to achieve complete domination in the community, according to expert law enforcement witnesses.

The proof, the prosecutor added, could be found in graffiti painted on a prominent area of town shortly after the shooting that ridiculed the slain officer, and rap lyrics penned by one of Orozco’s fellow gang members glorifying the crime.

"When you kill a police officer it’s an attack on all of us," Anger told the jury. "It is an attack on the very fabric of our society."

UPDATE II 1400hrs PST

The news is out:

A jury found Jose Luis Orozco guilty on all counts Tuesday in the murder of Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy Jerry Ortiz.

In its second day of deliberation, the jury of five women and seven men found Orozco guilty of one count of first degree murder in the gang investigator’s 2005 slaying, along with the special circumstance allegations of murder of a peace officer, murder while lying in wait, murder to avoid arrest and carrying out the crime to benefit his gang.

Orozco was also found guilty of one count of attempted murder, stemming from the shooting that occurred four days before the deputy was killed and two counts of being a felon in possession of a gun.

The special circumstance convictions make Orozco eligible for the death penalty. The sentencing phase of the trial will begin on Tuesday.

The jury deliberated less than two hours on Monday, and for about three hours Tuesday before reaching its verdict.

Curt

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