Report: Dominican authorities seek Orioles pitcher in killing
Alfredo Simon, a 29-year-old pitcher who overcame a serious arm injury to become a key component of the Orioles' bullpen last season, is wanted in connection with a shooting in the Dominican Republic, The Sun's Dan Connolly reports.
The pitcher is suspected of killing 25-year-old Michel Castillo Almonte and wounding his 17-year-old brother during a celebration in the northeast coastal town of Luperon, police said in a statement. No motive was disclosed. Simon is from the Dominican Republic, and police said he fled after the violence.
Published reports in the Dominican claim that Simon was involved in a New Year’s Eve celebration that left a 25-year-old man dead from a bullet wound in the thorax and a 17-year-old man with a gunshot wound in the right arm.
According to El Nacional, a newspaper published in Santo Domingo, an unidentified police spokesman said Simón had “committed the acts involuntarily, when he tried to shoot into the air to disperse some people involved in an incident in the park.”
But Felipe Alou Jr., the coordinator of the Orioles’ Dominican Republic academy, said he and another Orioles’ Dominican official have been in touch with Simon, who said he was at Luperón’s Central Park at the time of the incident, but was not involved in the shooting.
