 | It took 26 years for a Mexican Mafia death sentence to reach Donald Ramon Ortiz. A member of the Mexican Mafia, Ortiz was cast out of the gang in the mid-1990s. Ortiz, they decided, should be killed. For the next 26 years as he cycled through county jails, state prisons and brief periods on the street, he wore a target on his back. Ortiz knew he was a marked man. Authorities knew it too. Whenever they discovered a plot to kill Ortiz or he was attacked in prison, they’d offer to protect him. His answer was the same: I can take care of myself.
On Nov. 19, Chino police were called. A man had walked up to Ortiz and fired a bullet into his head, leaving him to die in the street. |  |