By Hector Becerra and Jessica Garrison, Los Angeles Times –
LOS ANGELES — The congregation was singing and praying Sunday evening inside Principe de Paz, a weathered storefront church on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, when a parishioner checking on the food being set up in the back parking lot came across something suspicious.
He saw a young woman spraying graffiti on a side of the church. He asked her to stop, but she knocked him to the ground. Just then, Andres Ordonez and another church member rushed outside to help.
As they arrived, a man emerged from a car parked next to the church and opened fire, killing Ordonez and wounded the other parishioner.
Hearing the gunshots, churchgoers poured out into the street, kneeling next to the victims and praying in Spanish, witnesses said.
“For God’s sake, if people going to church aren’t protected, then who is?” asked a nearby business owner, who bolted out of his store when he heard the gunfire and saw the dead man lying on the asphalt, surrounded by loudly grieving parishioners.
The shooting left the neighborhood angry and afraid. They said gangs have long been a problem in the area but that recently gang members threatening violence against residents who complain about or painted over graffiti.
The violence struck an evangelical church made up largely of Guatemalan and Central American immigrants who live in the dense row of apartments in the Westlake District. The church operated out of an old market, its windows gated and walls dotted with coats of paint covering graffiti.
LAPD detectives are searching for the gunman and tagger but believe some witnesses are afraid to come forward out of concern about gang reprisals. Several witnesses talked to the Los Angeles Times only on the condition of anonymity, fearing for their safety.
“They were going to church. They didn’t do anything to deserve what happened,” LAPD Homicide Detective Jeff Cortina said. “We need the public’s assistance. This wasn’t gangster-on-gangster. It could be anybody. It could be anybody’s kids.”
Ordonez, 25, was a cook and father of a 1-year-old boy who was a church regular. One friend said Ordonez had been going to the church since age 10.
“If you needed help, he would help you,” said the church’s handyman, Martin Delgado. He described Ordonez as humble, hard-working and accommodating.
“He was like the right hand of the pastor,” Delgado said. “From work to church, there was nothing else. To me, he was an extraordinary young man.”
Socorro Hernandez, 40, came to the church Monday evening, still in a state of disbelief that Ordonez was dead.
Hernandez knew the Ordonez family for years and said they were humble and religious. Ordonez’s father got up at 3 in the morning to collect cans around the neighborhood to support his family, she said.
The younger Ordonez, she added, wouldn’t walk by without offering a blessing.
“He was always talking about God. It was good morning, good evening and may God bless you,” she said, stifling tears.
Delgado added that the Ordonez and the other church members were “not aggressive people at all. You can insult them and they won’t insult back. They’re very peaceful people.”
Amalia Corado, 70, said the church was filled with the sounds of song and prayer at the time of the violence and that she didn’t actually hear gunshots. But she saw the commotion and raced outside, praying over Ordonez’s mortally wounded body.
DEAR
MEDIA
I come to you because of not getting or finding another contact option and / or communication with the rewards managers at Los Angeles and Major Erick Garcetti who offered $ 50,000 reward for information that would lead to the capture of the perpetrators of a homicide, after a brief lapse of consideration I decided to do the right thing by contacting the Los Angeles Police Department, where I was served by an electronic answering machine,so i left my message offering information on the whereabouts of the killer they were looking for as they had requested, left my name and contact number, A couple of days later a US MARSHALL contacted me arranging an appointment, in which i provided them the required information.There I was offered a first reward of 5,000 dollars after the arrest, and 50,000 once they are found guilty.
from there, the first (5000) were delivered with reasonable brevity, reiterating that the 50,000 would be delivered in a period of 2 to 3 months once they were found guilty, it should be noted that this was the last time I had personal contact with any of the agents, waiting for the resolution of the court with just the comment of the agent that “it was only a matter of time because they had actually committed the crime.”
At the end of 2014 they contancted me to tell that they were already sentenced that it was a matter of a couple of months, from that release I was changed both the contact agent and the delivery date giving multiple reasons losing contact in 2017, for these reasons I come to you asking for help to get contact and so get an answer on this delicate case that I am going through
having no other further at the moment I hope not to be also ignored by such important force as are the media
P.S
I omitted the case number the name of those sentenced, as well as my name and other details of capture for security reasons and not knowing how I can legally affect exposing them I hope you