COLUMBUS – A former Columbus police detective was sentenced to 18 months in prison for leaving the scene of a 2022 hit-and-run crash that left a woman dead on a Northeast Side street.
The Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office announced Friday that Demetris Ortega, 51, was sentenced after pleading guilty in September to a felony charge of failure to stop after an accident and a misdemeanor charge of operating a vehicle under the influence.
Ortega was driving near the intersection of Morse Road and Walford Street on April 20, 2022, when he struck and killed 30-year-old Naimo Abdirahman.
Ortega drove away from the scene and an investigation determined that he had been drinking and was under the influence of alcohol at the time the crash occurred, according to a release from the office of prosecutor G. Gary Tyack.
A Franklin County grand jury indicted Ortega on the two charges in April.
As part of Ortega’s sentence, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Carl Aveni also suspended Ortega’s driver’s license for three years.
Grand jury declines to indict SWAT officers in fatal shooting
A Franklin County grand jury on Thursday voted not to indict members of the Columbus Division of Police’s SWAT unit involved in the February shooting death of Bret Andrews, 46, of Athens County, in the parking lot of the Home Depot on Stringtown Road in Grove City.
On Feb. 11, officers arrived at the store to serve an arrest warrant on Andrews who entered the passenger side of a vehicle, according to a release from Tyack’s office.
The officers surrounded the vehicle and began giving verbal orders for the occupants to show their hands. Andrews was observed raising a handgun in the direction of officers and multiple
officers discharged their weapons, hitting Andrews with several rounds.
Officers administered first aid but Andrews died from his injuries.