After being declared a free agent by the Kansas City Royals, Dominican baseball player Jerinson Tatis was packing his bags to go and play with Oakland today, Monday 17 December. But a bullet cut short his poor family’s dreams when in the early hours of Sunday 16 December he was killed together with Angel Juan Alvarez, 25, after being shot by three minors in Villa Gonzalez, in the province of Santiago. His cousin Raymundo Antonio Pena Nunez, 16, who was also wounded during the incident, is being treated in a private clinic.
The shooting started at a party being held at the community basketball court, during the dawn hours of Sunday, to celebrate a basketball championship. It is believed that the cause was a settling of accounts over a drug deal. Tatis, 18, had played with Kansas City until October when he was declared a free agent. He then returned to the DR to spend time with his family, but had obtained a new contract to leave for the United States today and start playing for the Oakland Athletics. According to eyewitnesses, the aggressors invented an excuse that someone had stepped on them in order to create a pretext and opened fire at the young men. The National Police Cibao Central Command reported that a 17 year old, described as “the son of Modesto Paulino, and a resident of Ensanche La Rotonda” is under arrest. They are also looking for two fugitives, Aniel Santos Martinez Reyes and a man known only as “Robinson.”