Luis "Baby" Ortiz, who is accused of shooting NYPD officer Kevin Brennan in the head Tuesday night at the Bushwick Houses, showed no remorse as he was escorted out of the 90th Precinct station house yesterday afternoon. "Yeah, take a picture of me," Ortiz, 21, told photographers during the perp walk as he smiled, blew kisses to family and friends, and mugged for the cameras. In Spanish, he yelled "I love the Latin Kings," adding, "You know what it is," according to the Daily News. His angry supporters also showed little remorse.
After yelling to Ortiz that they loved him, family and friends ran after the alleged shooter as he was driven away, throwing a plastic bottle and shouting "F--- the police." His sister banged on the car's trunk as it pulled out, screaming, "I hate f---- cops," and supporters then turned on the press, and DNAinfo reports that several photographers were punched by the pro-Ortiz contingent. One bystander told WPIX, "That's my nephew to the fullest and I don't believe he did it."
Ortiz has 14 prior arrests on various charges, and was already wanted for questioning in the murder of Shannon McKinney, a drug addict known as Shan the Man. (The murder was originally believed to be the first murder of 2012, but the Times clarifies that someone else who was shot earlier that morning died a few hours after McKinney.) Ortiz's mother tells the Times that when her son was 4, she was sent to prison for 10 years for crack possession. Her husband says Ortiz is "not a bad kid. But he's the kind of kid who can be convinced to do things."
And Ortiz's aunt tells the News, "He's not the type of guy who goes around trying to kill anyone. He'd been arrested for drugs, street stuff but nothing like what the police are saying." But other residents of the Bushwick Houses have told reporters that Ortiz was a menace, and was part of a violent gang called The Crew.
Meanwhile, Officer Brennan, who has a six-week-old daughter, is "in and out of consciousness" according to Commissioner Ray Kelly, who visited Brennan again yesterday, adding that he was heavily sedated but expected to recover. He was shot just behind the right ear during a struggle with Ortiz, and police say surveillance video from the hallway of the housing project shows Ortiz shooting Brennan at close range. Dr. Eli Kleinman, the Police Department’s chief surgeon, tells the Times that luckily the bullet had been "stopped by the thick part of the base of his skull."
