FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com september 19, 2013 • THE QUEENS COURIER 3 WOMAN MOURNS HUSBAND KILLED IN STABBING SUSPECT LINKED TO EARLIER INCIDENT BY CRISTABELLE TUMOLA AND ANGY ALTAMIRANO editorial@queenscourier.com Alba Orozco didn’t know that “see you soon” would be the last words she would hear from her husband. On Monday, September 16, Alba and her husband of 15 years, Ever Orozco, arrived for her routine doctor’s visit on 90th Street in Elmhurst. As Ever attempted to park their car, Alba got out and headed inside. Minutes later she heard people screaming for help but thought nothing of it until her doctor, who had rushed out to aid, returned to tell her someone had killed her husband. “I took it very calmly, there was nothing left to do,” said Alba, who said her husband had been stabbed seven times. “The doctor said he died there.” Steven Torres, 22, is accused of fatally stabbing 69-year-old Ever after the two got into an altercation at 90th Street and Roosevelt Avenue, near the No. 7 subway station. Torres allegedly made anti-gay statements Colombian-born Orozco was taken to Elmhurst General Hospital where he was pronounced dead. “He was simply marvelous,” said Alba. “He was a happy man, he was just a really happy person. This has been a terrible blow, my life has completely changed. You have to wait, this isn’t easy. It takes time, but what I do know is that things are not the same anymore.” Plain-clothes officers chased after the suspect and apprehended him at 84th Street and Roosevelt Avenue. Torres has been charged with second degree murder and criminal possession of weapon, said police. At his arraignment, Torres was ordered held without bail. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years to life in prison. At the time of his arrest, authorities also charged him with assault as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon in connection to a September 12 stabbing on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. During that incident, Torres allegedly attacked a 47-year-old male, because he reportedly thought the victim was coming onto him. According to Councilmember Daniel Dromm, who has been in contact with the 115th Precinct about the incident, Torres told cops that Orozco blew kisses at him and made other sexual advances. “The use of a gay panic defense, whether real or imagined, is no excuse for violently attacking someone on the streets,” said Dromm. “We need to make clear that this type of violence will not be tolerated. And it shouldn’t matter whether you are gay or straight, no Alba Orozco and her husband Ever, who was brutally stabbed to death in Elmhurst, celebrating his birthday. If You’re Ready to Buy a Home,We are Ready to Help. The State of New York M ortgage Agency offers: Up to $15,000 Down Payment Assistance 1-800-382-HOME(4663) towards the victim, according to police. for Housing www.sonyma.org Photo courtesy of Alba Orozco one deserves to be killed in a manner like this.” The New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP), which said the stabbing marks the third related anti-LGBT homicide in New York City so far this year, is organizing a Community Safety Night on Friday, September 20 in Jackson Heights. For more information, visit the AVP’s Facebook page. A mother’s anguish CATHLEEN ALEXIS APOLOGIZES TO MASSACRE VICTIMS BY LIAM LA GUERRE lguerre@queenscourier.com The mother of a Queens native who went on a shooting rampage, killing a dozen people at a Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., apologized to the victims and their families in the days following the massacre. Cathleen Alexis told media that she didn’t know why her son Aaron did what he did -- and that she was sorry for his actions. “Aaron is now in a place where he can no longer do harm to anyone and for that I am glad,” Alexis said. “To the families of the victims, I am so very sorry that this has happened. My heart is broken.” The FBI identified Aaron Alexis, 34, formerly of Flushing, as the gunman in the mass shooting, which began at about 8:20 a.m. on Monday, September 16 at the Washington Navy House. Authorities confirmed 13 people died, including Alexis, and several more were injured. Alexis entered Building 197 at the Navy Yard with a legally-bought shotgun, FBI officials said, using a legitimate pass as a result of his work as a Navy civilian contractor. He then gained access to a handgun inside the facility after he began shooting. Alexis fired on workers in the cafeteria and hallways before he was killed, according to reports. Cops have ruled out additional gunmen and said that Alexis acted alone. Officials are still investigating his motives in the shootings. “Our Evidence Response Teams remain at the Navy Yard and continue to process the scenes,” said Valerie Parlave, FBI Washington assistant director in charge. “This is a methodical and time-intensive process that includes bullet trajectory analysis and crime scene mapping.” The FBI is also busy talking to people who have connections with Alexis and going to places around the country where he has been, which include Seattle and Fort Worth, Texas and Brooklyn, where his family lives. He most recently started staying in a Residence Inn in the southwest region of Washington, D.C., according to the FBI. He worked for the Navy as a civilian contractor from IT company The Experts and was in the Navy reserves from 2007 to 2011, the Navy confirmed. Alexis was suffering from paranoia and was seeing mental health professional, reports said, and he once called police while in Rhode Island to say that he was hearing voices and being pursued. Alexis had been arrested twice in connection with gun charges, once in 2004 Flushing native Aaron Alexis was identified as the gunman responsible for killing a dozen people in a Washington, D.C. Navy Yard shooting. Photo courtesy FBI and another time in 2010, but was not prosecuted either time, according to reports. In the incident in 2004 he shot out the tires of a construction worker’s car in an anger-fueled “blackout.”
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