In the winter of 2019, a Brooklyn family was shattered by a second wave of gun violence, stealing the life of 30-year-old William Ortiz. On the afternoon of Thursday, January 17th, Ortiz was visiting the Lafayette Houses in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. He was discovered in a 13th-floor hallway, having sustained a fatal gunshot wound to his torso. The male victim was rushed to Kings County Hospital, but tragically, his life could not be saved.
The pain of Ortiz's death was compounded by a hauntingly similar tragedy that had befallen his family just 19 months earlier. His brother, Terrell Ortiz, had also been a victim of a fatal shooting. In a cruel twist of fate, on the day he was killed, William Ortiz was reportedly at the apartment building to discuss arrangements for his deceased brother's tombstone with his mother. The violence that had claimed one brother had returned to claim another, leaving a family to navigate an unimaginable depth of sorrow.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the New York Police Department descended upon the scene, canvassing for witnesses and searching for any clues that might lead to the person or persons responsible for this brazen act of violence. Despite their efforts, and the profound loss experienced by the Ortiz family, no immediate arrests were made in connection with the murder. The investigation into who shot William Ortiz and why was launched, but information regarding any suspects or a motive for the shooting was not made public in the days following the incident. The community was left to mourn another life lost to the persistent plague of gun violence, as a family was forced to confront a recurring nightmare.
