Officials: Ortiz shooting case of mistaken identity

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — Former Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz was shot in the back by a gunman who mistook him for the real target, another man who was seated at the same table at an outdoor cafe, Dominican officials said Wednesday.

The Dominican Republic’s attorney general and national police director told reporters that the attempted murder was ordered from the United States by Victor Hugo Gomez, an associate of Mexico’s Gulf Cartel. They said Gomez had hired a gang of killers to eliminate his cousin, whom Gomez suspected of turning him in to Dominican drug investigators in 2011.

The cousin, Sixto David Fernandez, was seated with the former baseball star on the night of June 9, when a gunman approached and fired a single shot, hitting Ortiz, the officials said. Fernandez owned an auto-repair shop and was friends with Ortiz, according to Attorney General Jean Alain Rodriguez and Maj. Gen. Ney Aldrin Bautista Almonte, director of the Dominican Republic’s national police.

Ortiz remains hospitalized in Boston, where doctors have upgraded his condition from guarded to good.

At least 11 people have been arrested in the case so far, ranging from the alleged gunman to a series of drivers and relatively minor accomplices. Rodriguez and Bautista said the case of mistaken identity began when one of the accomplices shot a blurry photo of Fernandez seated at the Dial Bar and Lounge in an upscale section of Santo Domingo. In the photo, a white freezer obscures Fernandez’s lower body.

Ortiz was wearing white pants on the night of the shooting and the law-enforcement official said that the gunman, Rolfy Ferreyra, mistook him for the target and fired.

Ferreyra is a skinny, tattooed 25-year-old whom U.S. prosecutors said is wanted on armed robbery and gun charges in New Jersey. His driver was captured immediately after the shooting when he fell off the motorcycle he was trying to use to escape. Ferreyra and the other suspects were captured over the next few days.

Gomez, the alleged mastermind, is believed to be in the United States and is being sought by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Bautista said.

The weapon used in the shooting, a Browning Hi Power semiautomatic pistol, was buried in the garden of one of the suspect’s home and was later turned over to police by his mother, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.