Alleged shooter arrested in $8,000 plot to kill baseball's David Ortiz

Reuters - The alleged shooter of David Ortiz has been arrested along with four others in a group offered nearly $8,000 to kill the former Boston Red Sox star at a Dominican Republic bar, authorities said on Wednesday (June 12). The arrests came as Ortiz, 43, recovered in a Boston hospital following a second round of surgery on Tuesday (June 11), according to his family, which said he was sitting up and had taken a few steps. The plot to kill Ortiz, a national hero in the Dominican Republic, was more complex than initially thought and involved two men on a motorcycle working with two other groups of people in cars, National Police chief Ney Aldrin Bautista Almonte told reporters. Dominican Republic Attorney General Jean Alain Rodriguez identified Ramon Martinez Perez as the man suspected of jumping off the back of a motorcycle on Sunday night and shooting Ortiz in the torso. Bautista said the group was offered 400,000 Dominican pesos ($7,830) to carry out the contract killing. Ortiz, widely known as "Big Papi," is a sports legend in Boston for his role in three World Series baseball championships as well as his profane but inspiring remarks in the days after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. He retired in 2016 after hitting 541 career home runs, which ranks 17th all-time in Major League Baseball. Ortiz was shot while seated at an open-air nightclub in Santo Domingo, the capital of his native country. Ortiz's friend Jhoel López, a television host, was wounded in the leg in the shooting. The Dominican Republic has one of the highest murder rates in the world, with most homicides committed during robberies, according to the U.S. State Department. Police quickly arrested the suspected motorbike driver, identified as Eddy Féliz García, who was detained and beaten by bystanders at the scene.