Residence Raided in Slaying of Deputy

Deputies raided a home in Cerritos on Tuesday night in a futile search for a man sought for questioning in the fatal shooting of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Jerry Ortiz.

Officers said they thought the man had barricaded himself at the house in the 11900 block of Agnes Street. But after surrounding the home for about three hours, a SWAT team moved into the house at about 10 p.m. to find it empty.

Deputies did not identify the man, saying only that he had been seen with the suspect in the case, Jose Luis Orozco, before the June 24 shooting of Ortiz.

Orozco was arrested by a sheriff’s SWAT team about nine hours after the shooting. Officers said they found him cowering in a bathtub at a home three houses from where Ortiz had been shot.

Ortiz, a gang enforcement officer, was searching for Orozco because the known gang member was a suspect in a neighborhood shooting earlier in the week.

Orozco also was suspected of violating parole after serving time for a weapons violation, officers said.

Ortiz, 35, was alone when he arrived at a house in the 12200 block of 223rd Street in Hawaiian Gardens at about 3 p.m. on June 24 to inquire about Orozco, according to sheriff’s deputies. They said a woman answered the door and a man walked up behind her.

They said Ortiz asked the man for identification and was checking it when Orozco appeared from inside the house, shot Ortiz in the head at close range and fled.

The Sheriff’s Department did not say whether the man sought for questioning was in any way connected with the man Ortiz had been speaking to before he was shot.