David Ortiz shooting was $30,000 hit gone wrong, per Dominican Republic police
Police in the Dominican Republic announced in a news conference on Sunday that the shooting that injured retired Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz was a hit that did not go according to plan.
Via the Associated Press, national police spokesman colonel Frank Felix Duran Mejia said that the alleged mastermind behind the shooting, Victor Hugo Gómez, had arranged to have his cousin killed for $30,000. The cousin, Sixto David Fernandez, is friends with Ortiz, and was sharing a table with him at the club where the June 9 shooting happened. It is believed that Ortiz was shot in a case of mistaken identity.
Duran Mejia said that Gómez allegedly blamed his cousin for an earlier arrest, and supposedly took out the hit because he was afraid that his cousin would tell the authorities about his presence in the country. Gómez was thought to have been in the U.S. until recently, and is being investigated for his suspected ties to the Gulf Cartel in Mexico. Gómez was arrested on Friday along with Alberto Rodriguez Mota, who allegedly paid the hit men. The hit men had only been paid $10,000 of the $30,000 fee.
Ortiz, 43, was shot in the back in the attack, and sustained injuries to several organs before the bullet exited through his stomach. He underwent emergency surgery in the Dominican Republic to repair some of the damage. The Red Sox arranged for him to be airlifted to Boston in the team plane to receive further care just days after Ortiz was shot.
Ortiz lost parts of several affected organs in a subsequent surgery, but is expected to make a full recovery.
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