By Mark Brown
The Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO — In the early morning hours of Dec. 24, 2007, a young tortilla factory worker in Little Village named Fernando Reyes was assigned the task of driving a forklift to fetch a pallet of cornmeal from a truck parked a block away.
Reyes’ movements aroused the attention of a Latin King he passed on the street, who called his brother, who ran to the scene moments later with three of their cousins — all of them members of the gang.
Investigators never were able to positively pin down the alleged provocation, whether it was something personal with Reyes or the result of a more generalized bad blood between the gang and workers at the tortilla factory.
But they were able to prove what happened next: that the gang members came upon Reyes from behind, pulled him off the forklift and beat him mercilessly. As a sixth man joined in, they punched and kicked him until he could no longer resist the blows.
Then two of the men crossed the street to where the city was doing some construction and returned with a chunk of concrete two feet in diameter and dropped it on Reyes’ head. Twice.
The medical examiner would later say those skull-crushing blows caused the injuries that killed Reyes.
Nobody admitted seeing, hearing anything
The assailants took Reyes’ wallet, cell phone, paycheck and $30 to $40 in cash.
Reyes’ boss wondered what was taking so long and sent somebody to check on him. They found his body lying in the street.
Despite the viciousness of the attack, it wasn’t immediately apparent to police arriving on the scene exactly what they had. Was Reyes a crime victim, or had there been some kind of accident?
Investigators went door-to-door to question nearby residents, but you can guess how that went. Nobody saw or heard anything. And that’s where it might have ended.
Two days later, though, neighbor Fernando Garcia went to the police station on his own and admitted he had seen the whole thing from his second-floor window. Garcia said he hadn’t told the truth when police first came to his door because he was afraid of being overheard by one of his tenants, a relative of the gang members. He said he had tried to go to police later that day but thought he was being followed.
His wife, Silvia Ortiz, had witnessed the attack, too. Between them, they were able to pick out three of the assailants from photos and provided nicknames for the others. After further police investigation, Garcia was able to identify all six in lineups, while Ortiz identified five.
In the meantime, another neighbor had come forth, too, but when the first trial rolled around in December 2009, he could no longer be found.
‘They were going to do the right thing’
That meant Garcia, a neighborhood mechanic, and Ortiz, a suburban factory worker, were the only eyewitnesses available to prosecutors — a precarious situation for them to be sure. This was gang territory, after all, and there was no way to keep secret their cooperation with police.
But the couple never backed down, not in response to verbal threats, not after vandalism to their home and car, not in the face of intimidation tactics on the street and outside the courtroom.
They hung tough through four trials over 14 months, which meant four trips to the witness stand for each, complete with cross-examinations. Those trials resulted in the murder convictions of five of the six defendants.
“These may be two of the bravest people that I’ve encountered in this line of work,” said Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Andy Varga, who prosecuted five of the cases.
“It’s remarkable,” Varga said. “We kept figuring at some point in time they’d disappear or say they can’t do this anymore. We offered to move them. They said: ‘No, this is our home.’ They were going to do the right thing, and they did it. Without them, this case goes nowhere.”
Garcia said simply: “He didn’t deserve to die like that.”
All too often we hear about crimes that go unsolved — or unprosecuted — because witnesses won’t come forward or have to be dragged to the courthouse.
On Tuesday night, State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez honored Garcia, 46, and Ortiz, 43, with the office’s Victim Service Award in recognition of their courage for standing up for Fernando Reyes, a man they only knew in passing. In the process, they stood up for their community.
Copyright 2011 Sun-Times Media, LLC
All Rights Reserved