Pastor Cecilio “Roman” Ortiz died Sunday morning after his son allegedly shot him during a tussle in the family’s home.
Ortiz’s son, Malachi, is in jail facing a charge of second-degree murder in Pueblo, Colorado. But his mother, Roseen Ortiz, says her son didn’t mean to kill her husband. She says her son was intoxicated at the time of the fight.
“I was in the kitchen and I just heard a pop, and when I ran into the living room, they were just tussling over the firearm,” she says, according to Fox4Now.
She says she was able to get the gun away from the two men, but then her husband collapsed. She tried calling 911 five times, she says, but they did not answer. When paramedics finally arrived, she says her husband was still breathing and fighting for his life.
“My son, I talked to him,” she says. “He was unaware of what took place until he sobered up and the police told him what they were charging him with, and he’s having a very hard time.”
In addition to being a pastor at the Lord’s Vineyard Fellowship Church, Ortiz was also a neighborhood barber at Roman’s Barber and Salon, reports KKTV.
The church held a memorial service for the beloved pastor on Monday.
“He was loved by so many. So many,” Roseen says of her late husband. “… It’s going to be very hard without him. He was a man that spoiled all of us. I mean, if you woke up at 2 o’clock in the morning and you wanted an ice cream, he would jump up and run to Loaf ‘N Jug and grab you an ice cream. That’s who he was.”
Please pray for the Ortiz family and their church at this time. {eoa}
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