A Tomball woman whose husband was recently killed in an unsolved road rage shooting said seeing the video of a possible road rage shooting in Spring Tuesday was retraumatizing.
Nazly Ortiz and Benjamin Green, a couple, were both sent to the Harris County Jail Wednesday after appearing in probable cause court earlier in the day. The pair appeared in court wearing the same outfits they had on in a now-viral cell phone video appearing to show Ortiz shooting a weapon twice at a car trying to escape Tuesday.
The couple then picks up something off the ground before returning to their SUV. The suspected road rage incident happened on the North Freeway in Spring.
Ortiz was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon while Green was charged with aggravated assault.
Harris County deputies said Greene got out of his truck to fight the other driver, who had a two-year-old toddler in the backseat.
In court, the public defender argued that the victim didn’t try to de-escalate the situation, which then resulted in the shooting.
“There’s an allegation following the physical fight the complaining witness drove off either hitting or nearly hitting my client’s fiancé, making her fearful of his well-being,” the public defender said.
The judge deferred the case to Harris County’s 182nd District Court where a judge Thursday will determine bond in a hearing.
It’s been two months since Michelle Dantzler’s husband, Christopher, was killed in a road rage shooting off the Tomball Parkway. The shooting was not caught on camera to her knowledge.
“I play back the day that they called and told me that my husband was shot in the head,” said the widow. “I play that back every day. It’s like, it still feels like it’s not real. Like I’m in a dream. I still feel like my husband’s not gone.”
The 51-year-old was riding in the backseat of a red Nissan Armada to help accompany a friend to a scrap yard. The truck Christopher was in pulled out in front of a Silver Malibu with blacked-out windows in the 19500 block of SH 249.
Harris County Sheriff’s Deputies said someone in the car fired into the truck, killing Christopher. His wife said there have been few leads.
“Please turn yourself in because if it ain’t eating you up now, it’s gonna eat you up later knowing that you killed an innocent man for no reason,” Dantzler said.
Dantzler said considering the road rage incident that took her husband’s life, she’s more fearful of driving. She said she’s cautious about even honking out of concern other drivers could retaliate.