GILROY
– A four-hour ordeal between Gilroy police and a rumored hit man
ended quietly with the arrest of Jose Ornelas at his Gilroy
workplace Tuesday afternoon for allegedly making terrorist threats
and brandishing a deadly weapon at his girlfriend and her
daughters.
GILROY – A four-hour ordeal between Gilroy police and a rumored hit man ended quietly with the arrest of Jose Ornelas at his Gilroy workplace Tuesday afternoon for allegedly making terrorist threats and brandishing a deadly weapon at his girlfriend and her daughters.Police sealed off 10th Street, shut down businesses and called out the SWAT team and a K-9 unit in an effort to nab Ornelas, who police believed may have been armed and hiding out in an apartment behind Charlie’s Liqour between Eigleberry and Church streets.
More than a dozen armed officers clad in body armor roamed the area, some with high-powered rifles and automatic weapons, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. until police located Ornelas at his workplace. He was taken into custody without incident and taken to the Santa Clara County jail where he awaits formal charges from the District Attorney’s office, Gilroy police said.
From 10 a.m. until after 2 p.m. Tuesday, police were poised at a parking lot on 10th and Eigleberry streets trying to lure Ornelas, aka Jose Arguirre, from his girlfriend’s apartment. Police are still sorting out details, but Ornelas apparently fled the apartment when police responded to a domestic disturbance call around 9:30 a.m.
“We had two calls at two different times from two different people claiming (Ornelas) and his girlfriend (Nyuzette Mares) were having some domestic problems,” Assistant Police Chief Lanny Brown said.
A 9-millimeter pistol was found in the apartment after Ornelas was arrested, police said.
GPD responded to the second call, but did not enter the apartment since Ornelas, also known as Jose Arguirre, was considered armed and dangerous.
Police got Mares and her two girls, ages 3 and 8, to leave the apartment around 9:30 a.m. Officers did not enter the apartment, however, until 2 p.m.
Brown said GPD had intelligence on Ornelas linking him to various felony activities, including the rumors he worked as a hit man in Mexico, and officers did not want to take any chances.
