Suspect in slay of Brooklyn electrician nabbed in Georgia

A suspect in the September shooting death of a Brooklyn electrician has been busted in Georgia, police said Sunday.

Shamar Wiltshire, 22, allegedly stepped out of a car and shot 30-year-old Ronald Ortiz, who was taking his lunch break under an awning at the Boulevard Houses in East New York about 11:55 a.m. on Sept. 14.

Wiltshire fired off a half-dozen shots at point-blank range, hitting Ortiz four times, according to police.

The suspect went on the run, but police caught up with him in Stockbridge, Ga., cops said. He was extradited to New York on Friday and was awaiting arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court as of Sunday.

Wiltshire lives in the Boulevard Houses, just steps away from the crime scene on Stanley Ave. near Ashford St.

“At least there’s a little bit of closure,” said Ortiz’s cousin, who wanted to be identified only as Lee-Ann. “But you don’t know how to feel, basically.”

Two days after Ortiz’s murder, more than 400 people gathered in a baseball field in McCarren Park on the border of Greenpoint and Williamsburg to mourn him, setting his hardhat on the pitcher’s mound alongside candles, floating lanterns and bouquets of flowers.

An NYPD spokesman had no information Sunday on the motive for the slaying.

Chief of Detectives James Essig said the shooter “specifically targeted” Ortiz, though his cousin told the Daily News their family believes it was a mistake.

“We are just all assuming it was mistaken identity, because he was on a work site there and he lived [in Greenpoint],” Lee-Ann said Sunday. “We just always thought it was just something random.”

Ortiz worked as an electrician and in construction and played shortstop for softball leagues in Williamsburg. He also played in a local basketball league.

“He was well-liked by everyone, not a mean bone in his body,” said Lee-Ann. “He was everyone’s friend and he really was working hard .. We were all just in shock.”

Ortiz was born and raised in Greenpoint and attended Grand Street Campus High School, where he played baseball for four years.

“Ronnie was a gentleman on and off the field,” Melvin Martinez, 53, who was Ortiz’s high school baseball coach, said at the vigil. “He continued playing great baseball after school.”

Lee-Ann has never heard of the suspected gunman.

“To find out that [Wiltshire] lived in that building is even more surreal,” she said. “That’s why it was just so heart-wrenching when it happened, because it was unbelievable.”