He dodged a Mexican Mafia death sentence for 26 years. Then his luck ran out

LOS ANGELES — It took 26 years for death to catch up to Donald Ramon Ortiz.

A member of the Mexican Mafia, Ortiz was cast out of the criminal organization in the mid-1990s after angering other members. Ortiz, they decided, should be killed. For the next quarter-century, as he cycled through county jails, state prisons and brief stints on the street, he wore a target on his back.

Ortiz knew he was a marked man. Authorities knew it too. Whenever they discovered a plot to kill Ortiz or he was attacked in prison, they'd offer to protect him. His answer was always the same: I can take care of myself.

Then, last month, a man walked up to Ortiz and fired a bullet into his head, leaving him to die in the street in Chino. He was 59 years old.

Ortiz's rise and fall in the Mexican Mafia tells a larger story about a syndicate that, through a mix of ruthlessness and business savvy, came to dominate California's prisons and many of its street gangs. The killing of Ortiz illustrates how slights and betrayals within its ranks — some perceived, others real — have driven many decisions made over the Mexican Mafia's treacherous history. With most of its members in prison for life and having nothing but time to nurse old grudges, decisions reverberate through the decades, shadowing