Gunman Kills L.A. Deputy on Gang Duty

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy interviewing a woman and a man outside a Hawaiian Gardens apartment was fatally shot Friday when a gunman burst out of the residence, put a handgun to the officer’s face and fired, authorities said.

Sheriff’s deputies fanned out across Hawaiian Gardens late Friday in search of the gunman, who apparently surprised Deputy Jerry Ortiz, 35, as he spoke to the woman in the doorway of her apartment. Authorities said Ortiz probably died instantly.

“This was an assassination of a deputy,” Sheriff Lee Baca said. “It was a sudden attack that gave the deputy no chance.”

Deputies identified the suspect as Jose Luis Orozco, 27, a parolee wanted on suspicion of attempted murder in another case.

“He should be considered armed and very dangerous,” said sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore.

Deputies said that Orozco is 5-foot-8, 135 pounds, with tattoos of “devil’s horns” on his forehead and other tattoos over his upper body. They said he is a gang member known by the nickname “Sepy.”

Ortiz, who had hoped to become a detective soon, had worked for the Sheriff’s Department for 15 years and was known as an extremely hard worker whose job was to penetrate the inner workings of local gangs. The Diamond Bar resident was married two weeks ago to his second wife, Chela. He is also survived by two sons, ages 6 and 16.

Last year, Ortiz won the department’s Medal of Honor after he fatally shot a carjacker who drew a gun on him and his partner, Det. Colin Orpe.

“He was an outstanding person, who would go out of his way to help people,” said Orpe, a longtime friend. “We’re all mourning,” he said, choking back tears.

The shooting occurred about 3:10 p.m. in the 12200 block of 223rd Street in Hawaiian Gardens, a working-class city at the northeastern border of Long Beach that has long been plagued by gang violence. The town of 14,000 has struggled economically in recent years, luring a casino to help balance its shaky finances.

Ortiz’s body was discovered by residents who heard the gunfire. They tried to aid the deputy and dialed 911, authorities said. Ortiz was working without his longtime partner at the time of the attack.

Undersheriff Larry Waldie said Ortiz had arrived for work early, as he often did, and was so eager to begin his day that he struck out on his own. “He didn’t want to wait,” Waldie said.

Asked if Ortiz might have lived had his partner been with him, Waldie said there was no way to know.

“There might have been two people killed,” he said.

The shooting was followed by confusion as scores of deputies descended on the area with dogs and rifles but little knowledge of what had occurred.

A sheriff’s SWAT team encircled the apartment complex where it was believed that the gunman could be hiding.

Patrol deputies detained as many as nine potential witnesses and others in an effort to learn details of the shooting. Nearly all of them were rounded up in a liquor store next to the apartment complex. Television news footage showed the men and women sitting on the curb in handcuffs as deputies interviewed them and swabbed their hands for possible gunshot residue.

“We don’t know where the shots came from,” Sheriff’s Sgt. Vanette Christensen said soon after the incident. “A person who lived in the building called 911 and said that an officer was shot and that he was outside.”

A second deputy suffered a minor injury when he slipped and fell while rushing to the scene, according to the Sheriff’s Department. He was taken to the hospital and is “going to be fine,” Christensen said.

As armored vehicles and helmeted deputies rolled past liquor stores and strip malls, news helicopters recorded footage of paramedics wheeling Ortiz to a helicopter and pumping frantically on his chest in effort to revive him. At Harbor-UCLA Medical Center near Torrance, anxious relatives rushed inside. Sheriff’s deputies, some in civilian clothes, embraced one another outside the hospital.

It wasn’t until after the Sheriff’s Department announced Ortiz’s death several hours later that a clearer picture of his death emerged.

Baca, who was attending a law enforcement conference in Kentucky, said in a telephone interview that Ortiz had knocked on the door of a residence and begun talking with a woman who answered. Officers said the gunman approached from behind the woman, reached over the shoulder of another man Ortiz was talking to and shot the deputy point-blank in the face. The suspect fled after the shooting. .

“He killed a deputy and then ran like the coward he is,” said an emotional Baca. “This coward is the worst of the worst, and eventually he is going to be caught.”

Baca is returning to Los Angeles today.

Gang enforcement officers, who frequently wear green sheriff’s polo shirts and khaki pants -- as Ortiz was -- “face some of the most dangerous criminals in America,” Baca said. “The deputy may have been checking on gang members’ whereabouts for parole purposes.”

Baca said he knew Ortiz personally and described him as a model deputy who boxed for charity, squaring off against Marines and LAPD officers.

“It is a shocking death for not only the whole department but the public,” the sheriff said. “He was an all-round convincingly nice man who personified the community-based-policing cop.”

The last sheriff’s deputy to be shot to death in the line of duty was Michael R. Arruda, who died June 9, 2004. He was shot accidentally by another deputy during a confrontation with a man who was armed with a pellet gun. The man also died in the incident.

Det. Orpe said Ortiz was a tireless crime fighter and had spent the last five years working the gang detail.

“Jerry loved the job. He was dedicated like nobody else. He came in early and left late. He give his all,” Orpe said. “He died doing what loved to do.”

The detective said that although Ortiz would often lighten the stress of the job with jokes, the deputy was very aware of the dangers they faced each day.

As the search for Ortiz’s killer expanded late Friday, Orpe said his fellow officers would not stop until they found the gunman.

“We are going to ensure justice for Jerry,” Orpe said. “We’ll use every resource we have to get this guy.”

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Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.