Posted on February 2, 2012

Luis (Baby) Ortiz, Suspected of Shooting Officer Kevin Brennan, Yells ‘I Love the Latin Kings’ in Show for Police-Hating Posse

John Doyle et al., NY Daily News, February 2, 2012

Playing the big man for his pathetic posse, the sneering thug charged with shooting and nearly killing a brave Brooklyn cop demanded his 15 minutes of fame Wednesday as he was hauled out of a police precinct in handcuffs.

“Yeah, take a picture of me,” a grinning Luis (Baby) Ortiz said as about a dozen cheering friends and family gathered outside the 90th Precinct.

Sporting corn rows and dressed in a black hoodie, Ortiz yelled “I love the Latin Kings” in Spanish and then added with a knowing smile, “You know what it is,” as two officers led him to an unmarked police car.

“We love you, we love you,” his aunt Celine Ortiz yelled.

The brazen gangbanger blew an air kiss and said “I love you” back before he was bent over and shoved into the back seat.

As the car pulled away, a female follower pounded her fists on the trunk screaming “F — – the police!” and “I hate the f — — -g cops!”

There wasn’t a shred of remorse from Ortiz or his mangy followers, who vented their anger on news photographers before finally stalking off into the night.

Ortiz’s deluded display of defiance came as chilling new details emerged of the dramatic struggle that ended with Officer Kevin Brennan laying bleeding in hallway of a Bushwick housing project — with a bullet wound to his head.

Amazingly, the shot just missed piercing his brain and Brennan is expected to eventually recover.

But his chances of surviving appeared to be slim to none around 9 p.m. Tuesday after he chased the 21-year-old Ortiz into the hallway.

Charging like a linebacker for his beloved New York Giants, Brennan tackled Ortiz, police said.

“We do have some video that I’ve seen,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said after visiting the critically injured Brennan at Bellevue Hospital. “You see the officer right on top of this individual, or an effort to tackle him.”

Brennan “has his gun out,” Kelly added.

But so did Ortiz, a knock-off .38 caliber Colt that Kelly said he’d fired twice before that night.

{snip}

“They struggle and fall in sort of an alcove where you can’t actually see the shot, but you see Ortiz with his arm around the officer’s head and then he’s shot,” Kelly said. “He doesn’t move after he’s shot.”

{snip}

Officer Brennan

Meanwhile, Brennan’s wife Janet, 27, was by his side and his family was breathing a big sigh of relief.

Waiting for Brennan at his sister-in-law’s place was the apple of his eye — his six-week-old daughter, Maeve.

“Things have been going so well for them,” brother-in-law Robert Masi said. “New healthy baby. He just got promoted to sergeant. Even the Giants are in the Super Bowl.”

{snip}

Ortiz, it was later learned, “had fired two shots at a man with whom he had a staredown” before his confrontation with Brennan, Kelly said.

{snip}

Ortiz may be shrimpy, but his neighbors in the Bushwick Houses said he’s a terror. And police source said he was arrested as a juvenile in 2006 for assaulting another police officer.

Court records and other sources revealed Ortiz has 14 arrests on his rap sheet, everything from gang assault in upstate Goshen to torching trash cans around his Hewes Street building.

Ortiz was also being sought for the New Year’s Day killing of 34-year-old Shannon (Sham) McKinney in front of a Brooklyn supermarket.

{snip}