In the late hours of a Saturday in Covington, Georgia, a dispute over a cell phone escalated into a fatal encounter that claimed the life of 23-year-old Telmo Ortiz Jr. On September 9, 2017, Ortiz was found lying in a yard on Washington Street, having sustained several gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Shortly after the shooting, a Covington police officer who had heard the gunshots observed a Ford Expedition leaving the area without its headlights on. The officer attempted to initiate a traffic stop, but the driver, later identified as Darnell Rene Floyd of Conyers, refused to comply and fled, leading police on a high-speed chase. The pursuit crossed into neighboring Rockdale County, where deputies joined the effort to apprehend the suspect. The chase eventually concluded back in Covington after Rockdale deputies successfully executed a controlled crash maneuver on Floyd's vehicle. Inside the SUV with Floyd were a woman and an infant, who were both unharmed.
Following his arrest, Darnell Rene Floyd was charged with the murder of Telmo Ortiz Jr. Investigators alleged that a fight between the two men over a cell phone turned physical, leading to the deadly shooting. In addition to the murder charge, Floyd faced a litany of other accusations, including aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, and felony fleeing and attempting to elude police.
In a significant turn of events years later, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned Floyd's felony murder conviction in February 2024. The court ruled that Floyd's trial lawyer had been ineffective by failing to properly argue that he was acting in self-defense. The court's decision means that Floyd can be retried for the 2017 shooting death of Telmo Ortiz. While his murder conviction was wiped, his convictions for fleeing police and cruelty to children in the third degree remain.
