By Karen Gleason
Del Rioan Susie Ortiz says she wants to make sure her son isn’t forgotten.
Ortiz and members of her family on Thursday and Friday stood on the sidewalk outside the Val Verde County Courthouse near the intersection of Pecan and Losoya streets. Members of the group carried signs calling for justice for Ortiz’s son, Jesse Jimenez Jr.
Jimenez was shot and killed in early April 2020, according to an affidavit in the case filed by Del Rio Police Department Detective Michelle Salinas and released today by District Attorney Suzanne West in response to an open records request by the 830 Times.
Salinas wrote Jimenez was shot and killed following an altercation between several men at a gathering outside a residence in the 300 block of West Third Street.
Salinas said the police department received a call about “shots fired” outside the West Third Street residence.
She said officers who responded to the call learned that a man, later identified as Jimenez, had been shot and taken to the emergency room at Val Verde Regional Medical Center. Jimenez died at the hospital as a result of the injuries he sustained in the shooting.
The altercation that ended in Jimenez’s shooting began as an argument between neighbors about a man “revving the engine” of his truck, Salinas wrote in her affidavit.
The owner of the truck and another neighbor, identified as Aldo Alecxiis Arreola, and several other men in the neighborhood, including Jimenez, began arguing about the owner of the truck revving the vehicle’s engine.
The owner of the truck told police several men, including Jimenez, approached his truck as he and Arreola were getting ready to leave “and a fight ensued between Arreola and the males, including Jesse (Jimenez).”
“(The owner of the truck) stated a bald male wearing a white t-shirt was fighting with Arreola when he heard a gunshot. (He) stated Arreola has several weapons and always carried one . . .,” Salinas wrote.
The detective wrote that later on the same day, some of Jimenez’s male relatives cornered Arreola outside his residence, also located on West Third Street, and held him until police arrived.
One of Jimenez’s relatives provided police with a statement saying he had seen Arreola shoot Jimenez.
Arreola was arrested and charged with Jimenez’s murder. He is currently on bond in the case.
Jimenez’s mother said she is protesting the delays in the case against her son’s alleged killer.
West told the 830 Times today Ortiz and her family can be assured she will proceed with the case against Arreola.
