A family is demanding justice after a 92-year-old woman died following a car crash over the weekend with an Orlando Police cruiser.
Orlando Police told WESH 2 Investigates the Traffic Homicide Unit is now investigating the accident that happened early Sunday morning at the intersection of Semoran Boulevard and Hoffner Avenue.
The initial traffic crash report found the marked Orlando Police vehicle was at fault.
The family said Milagros Ortiz took her last breath at 6:59 Monday night at Orlando Regional Medical Center while surrounded by her loved ones.
“Just because you’re a police officer, that doesn’t allow you to just go and run a red light to do whatever it is that you’re doing,” Ortiz’s daughter Judy Santiago said.
Ortiz was the matriarch of her family. She was living her life to the fullest at 92-years-old.
“My mom wasn’t the average 92-year-old,” Ortiz’s daughter Evelyn Alicea said. “Like when we go to the hospital, all the doctors would think, but she’s 92-years-old. But she was a strong 92, a vibrant 92.”
Ortiz’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren said they are devastated by her sudden death after she was badly injured in the crash around 1:45 a.m. Sunday.
“I know it’s going to be harder for my sister,” Santiago said, “because my sister lived here with her, so she’s got the brunt of the memories, because waking up, doing mom’s coffee. Like just now, when we were sitting here, we both were thinking at the same time, but where’s mommy? We got to get her so she could come join us to sit down, because and we can no longer do that.”
The family said a 64-year-old friend was driving Ortiz home from her weekly Saturday night bingo game.
“I could have expected that, maybe from a drunk driver, which is what I used to tell my mom, be careful, because early hours in the morning, there’s a lot of drunk drivers out there,” Alicea said. “And that’s what I would always worry about. And like I said, that’s why we had her location. But it never in a million years I would have thought it was a police officer that was going to hit her.”
According to the traffic crash report, there’s video of the collision that corroborated a witness account.
The witness said a marked Orlando Police vehicle was stopped at a red light while headed westbound on Hoffner Avenue, but then drove into the intersection of Semoran Boulevard and hit the driver’s side of Ortiz’s friend’s Jeep going southbound.
The report said the police vehicle “was at fault for the collision due to failure to yield right of way.”
Both vehicles had to be towed away from the scene, and firefighters took the officer, Ortiz, and her friend to ORMC.
“We got to see her, and she was just, my chest pains, my chest hurts,” Alicea said. “She was afraid.”
Ortiz’s family is calling on the State Attorney’s Office to hold the officer accountable.
“And now that my mother’s gone,” Santiago said, “he needs to be charged with vehicular manslaughter. I don’t know if that’s the right term, whatever, but he needs to be charged for taking my mother’s life.”
The condition of the officer is not known.
WESH 2 Investigates asked Orlando Police whether he was on or off duty at the time of the crash, but they replied they had no additional information to share on Tuesday afternoon.
WESH 2 received this statement from OPD after the story aired.
Orlando Police Department Official Statement:
The Orlando Police Department has initiated an internal investigation following a traffic accident involving an Orlando Police officer that occurred at the intersection of South Semoran Blvd and Hoffner Avenue early Sunday morning.
In addition to the preliminary accident investigation conducted at the scene, a comprehensive Traffic Homicide investigation is also underway.
Both the internal review of the officer’s actions and the Traffic Homicide investigation remain ongoing and have not yet been completed.
To preserve the integrity of these investigations, no additional information is available for release at this time.
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Source: wesh
