PHILADELPHIA, PA – District Attorney Larry Krasner announced on Monday that Michael Ortiz was convicted of First Degree Murder and related charges for the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Luis Alcazar in January 2021. The conviction came on October 20 and was led by prosecutors from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office Homicide and Non-Fatal Shootings Unit.
Alcazar had just finished feeding his three-month-old son before leaving to meet Ortiz. The two men met inside Alcazar’s car on the 5700 block of Walker Street. After approximately five minutes, Ortiz shot Alcazar, who was unarmed, three times inside the vehicle.
The case relied heavily on surveillance footage that captured the killing. The video also enabled Philadelphia Police detectives to link Ortiz to a white Chrysler seen fleeing the crime scene. Subsequent search warrants for Ortiz’s social media accounts and cell phones helped identify the burner phone used by Ortiz and place him near the scene at the time of the murder. Ortiz was arrested in June 2021.
During the trial, a video compilation from the morning of the killing and other forensic evidence were presented to the jury, who returned their verdict in approximately three hours.