At least three people coordinated the attack on a driver in the southwest section of Lancaster city last week, leaving him hospitalized with a gunshot wound, according to police.
Lancaster city police officers were called to the 200 block of New Dorwart Street on the afternoon of May 18 for reports of a shooting. The man who was shot, identified as Jose Martinez, was driving a gold Chrysler Town & Country van with a Pennsylvania license plate. According to a police report, three assailants targeted Martinez, coordinating two attacks against him in the blocks surrounding his vehicle.
Police trace the initial events to the 400 block of Lafayette Street, where Martinez was involved in a minor traffic accident with a red 2023 Toyota sedan. From there, Martinez followed the sedan for several blocks before exchanging words with the driver of the car, later identified as Angelise Cotto, 18, of Lancaster, and a male passenger in the area of High and Laurel streets, three blocks from the initial accident.
Martinez told officers he stopped following the sedan at that point before he was cut off near the intersection of St. Joseph and New Dorwart streets by the same sedan. The passenger got out of the sedan and shot at Martinez multiple times, striking him once in the left arm. Martinez drove around to Filbert street, where Jaevon Lopez, 21, saw the van and fired at it at least three times.
Martinez drove his van to the 500 block of Manor Street, four blocks from the scene of the initial shooting, where someone drove him to Lancaster General Hospital to be treated for his non-life-threatening injuries.
Police used video footage to track the assailants to 455 Lafayette St. and tie the sedan’s registration to Cotto.
Lopez has been engaged in Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition for a firearms offense from 2022, when he was caught carrying a firearm without a license. He was sentenced on Sept. 8, 2022.
Cotto and Lopez have been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and Lopez has been charged with aggravated assault and other firearms related charges. Police are looking for Cotto, Lopez and the unidentified passenger in the sedan. They ask anyone with information to contact the station at 717-735-3300 or Lancaster County Crime Stoppers at 800-322-1913.
