David Ortiz on the mend: shooting and recovery

phrenile

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Might be time to remove the question mark from the title.
 

WestMassExpat

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The people who were saying in here they were just reacting to the best information we have should think about how their assumptions match this fact/based news.
 

GoDa

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Yeah... that's the ticket!

The quotes are amazing, but my favorite... "If a Gulf Cartel drug lord told me Ortiz wasn't the target, I'd believe him, too!"
 
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E5 Yaz

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The people who were saying in here they were just reacting to the best information we have should think about how their assumptions match this fact/based news.
You can't have knee-jerk reactions without ... knees
 

OurF'ingCity

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To put on the tinfoil hat for a moment: if it’s true that a hit was put on Ortiz due to marital infidelity (or other reasons that don’t put Ortiz in a great light necessarily), I could see a DR government official seeing a “mistaken identity” explanation as a way to sweep all that under the rug.

That said, it’s true that Ortiz’s back was to the shooter, so mistaken identity is at least plausible.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Is there any possible way someone could accidentally attempt to assassinate David freaking Ortiz in the Dominican Republic?
Apparently yes.

Clearly, we're not talking about highly trained assassins here. The whole thing was sloppy from start to finish. I mean, they got the wrong guy, didn't even get off a high percentage shot (if the intent was to kill), then everyone involved got rounded up in less than a week.
 

E5 Yaz

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Marly Rivera ESPN Writer
Dominican Attorney General Jean Alain Rodríguez: "The target of the hit was not to be David Ortiz, it was another individual that was in the same place and the same table and by coincidence was dressed similar to David that night. This confusion happened because of a picture that was taken minutes before the attack and circulated between one of the masterminds and the contract killers."

When you have more than one mastermind, you really don't have any
 

djbayko

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Conference is on right now.

https://twitter.com/Anaridis/status/1141467796607504386Anaridis Rodriguez @Anaridis5m
#BREAKING: Dominican's top prosecutor says "we are going to inform formally that the objective of this attack was NOT David Ortiz." AG says it was supposed to be someone who was sitting at the same table. Target was a "friend of David Ortiz." @wbz
Check out my post from the morning after his shooting...
The second victim is TV host Joel Lopéz. Also with them was rapper Secreto (El Bibieron). There is some chatter on the web that the hit was meant for him, but that could be sourced from wild speculation - people assuming the rapper must be involved somehow.
Could be a coincidence. Or it could be that hidden in the fog of war was a kernel of truth which was quickly drowned out by a more salacious, tabloid-ready story. The mistress, the Lexus, et al. could be true while also having nothing to do with his shooting. (I mean, we know it must be partly true since she was definitely in a brawl at the hospital)
 

GoDa

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I look about as much like David Ortiz as the "target." In any case, people will believe what they want to...

Haven't seen it mentioned here, but the more I look at the video - doesn't it look like the gun jammed after the first shot? Looks like the shooter was trying to pump out a few more shots and couldn't. Lucky.
 

djbayko

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I look about as much like David Ortiz as the "target." In any case, people will believe what they want to...

Haven't seen it mentioned here, but the more I look at the video - doesn't it look like the gun jammed after the first shot? Looks like the shooter was trying to pump out a few more shots and couldn't. Lucky.
I wouldn't rule out the possibility entirely. How nervous do you think you'd be if you were doing a hit in public? What if it was your first time (who knows)? I mean, we already know he shot him in the back when he had a clear shot at his head. The video shows he ran into the building and quickly shot him in the back without seeing him from the front. He could have been working with an imperfect detailed description of location, clothing, etc. from another spotter.
 

snowmanny

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So name the doppelgänger, the motive, and show where he's sitting on the video.

Ed: I;m guessing the shooter was a bit off his game because he drank from a minibar.
 

Marciano490

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Ortiz is a big dude. The odds of another guy that size being at his table seem... slim.
 

hoothehoo

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Hank Scorpio

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If what the DR authorities are saying is true, the guy who ordered the hit on Fernandez must be beside himself.

To go from ordering a hit that probably wouldn't even blip on the radar, to being responsible for the shooting of a national hero, to being the target of a manhunt by US and DR authorities has to be quite the ride.
 

lexrageorge

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If what the DR authorities are saying is true, the guy who ordered the hit on Fernandez must be beside himself.

To go from ordering a hit that probably wouldn't even blip on the radar, to being responsible for the shooting of a national hero, to being the target of a manhunt by US and DR authorities has to be quite the ride.
There's probably people lined up to put a hit on the hitman as well, even if Ortiz wasn't his intended target. Surrendering to US LE may his best option from a longevity standpoint.
 

GoDa

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Imagine if it's all a BS story made up to satisfy the needs of Ortiz/Gulf Cartel/DR police and government... and you're the guy that has been identified as the "target." What the hell!?!? You just went out to have a drink and now you're looking over your shoulder worried someone is going to "finish the job" to make the story look legit!
 

Marciano490

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If what the DR authorities are saying is true, the guy who ordered the hit on Fernandez must be beside himself.

To go from ordering a hit that probably wouldn't even blip on the radar, to being responsible for the shooting of a national hero, to being the target of a manhunt by US and DR authorities has to be quite the ride.
You get what you pay for.
 

Average Reds

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Imagine if it's all a BS story made up to satisfy the needs of Ortiz/Gulf Cartel/DR police and government... and you're the guy that has been identified as the "target." What the hell!?!? You just went out to have a drink and now you're looking over your shoulder worried someone is going to "finish the job" to make the story look legit!
If your stated position is that the speculative tabloid headlines based on nothing are more credible than official, on-the-record statements from prosecutors, then perhaps you should just show yourself out.
 

EllisTheRimMan

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If your stated position is that the speculative tabloid headlines based on nothing are more credible than official, on-the-record statements from prosecutors, then perhaps you should just show yourself out.
I’m sick and tired of all the rumors and rumor-mongering here. Stick to the known facts and let Papi and his reputation rest comfortably until we get the whole story.

Some of you guys here are like a gaggle of gossipy middle schoolers. It’s almost like you want this to make Ortiz look bad. Isn’t it bad enough that he was almost killed?
 
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I’m sick and tired of all the rumors and rumor-mongering here. Stick to the known facts and let Papi and his reputation rest comfortably until we get the whole story.

Some of you guys here are like a gaggle of gossipy middle schoolers. It’s almost like you want this to make Ortiz look bad. Isn’t it bad enough that he was almost killed?
If the end result is that Papi is confirmed to have had a mistress, his reputation will continue to rest comfortably. I'm not condoning it, but it's far from uncommon.
 

joyofsox

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June 9: Ortiz shot.
June 16: Officials in the DR say the claim that Ortiz was shot in a case of mistaken identity is "absurd".
June 19: Officials in the DR say the claim that Ortiz was shot in a case of mistaken identity is exactly what happened.
 

singaporesoxfan

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Is there any possible way someone could accidentally attempt to assassinate David freaking Ortiz in the Dominican Republic?
This frames the question in the wrong way. If what the prosecutors are saying is correct, then the right question is “is there any way someone looking for a person wearing certain clothes could end up accidentally shooting David Ortiz?” to which I would say it certainly sounds plausible. The shooter wasn’t going out looking for Ortiz, he’s not even thinking Ortiz is there, he’s looking for someone wearing clothes matching the description he was given
 

singaporesoxfan

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Ortiz is a big dude. The odds of another guy that size being at his table seem... slim.
But we don’t even know what the shooter was told. If he was just told “hey get the guy wearing this shirt” and he’s shown a pic he could just be focusing on the clothes and not the size, same way that when you’re meeting someone for the first time and they’re looking for you, you might text them to say “hey, I’m the guy in the blue shirt”.
 

joe dokes

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This frames the question in the wrong way. If what the prosecutors are saying is correct, then the right question is “is there any way someone looking for a person wearing certain clothes could end up accidentally shooting David Ortiz?” to which I would say it certainly sounds plausible. The shooter wasn’t going out looking for Ortiz, he’s not even thinking Ortiz is there, he’s looking for someone wearing clothes matching the description he was given
And lets not forget that the hitman was at least a few levels down from Léon.
 

Al Zarilla

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But we don’t even know what the shooter was told. If he was just told “hey get the guy wearing this shirt” and he’s shown a pic he could just be focusing on the clothes and not the size, same way that when you’re meeting someone for the first time and they’re looking for you, you might text them to say “hey, I’m the guy in the blue shirt”.
Maybe you’re shorthanding here, but you’re saying a guy is getting instructions to kill a man and going with a description of what kind of shirt he’s wearing? Even for 6-8K bucks, whatever it was, third world or developing country, that’s pretty pretty unbelievable. Adding to the B movie script here, sorry.
 

djbayko

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Maybe you’re shorthanding here, but you’re saying a guy is getting instructions to kill a man and going with a description of what kind of shirt he’s wearing? Even for 6-8K bucks, whatever it was, third world or developing country, that’s pretty pretty unbelievable. Adding to the B movie script here, sorry.
Mmaybe description of shirt and table he's sitting at. Perhaps David was in the bathroom or not arrived yet when someone did the scouting, so that seemed to be all that was necessary. Remember, a few vehicles met in the street just outside the bar, so they were talking about something.

I'm not saying the above is actually what happened. But it doesn't make sense to pick apart every single hypothetical. The point is you could probably come up with a bunch of different plausible scenarios which lead to mistaken identity.