Disabled IMPD hero victimized by porch pirate

INDIANAPOLIS — Santos Cortez doesn’t want your pity, but he does want your help in tracking down the porch pirate who stole delivered medical supplies from his front door in Franklin Township late Wednesday morning.

”Doing laundry and all of a sudden my cameras start ringing like crazy and I look at them and the next thing I know I see some lady with her own shopping bag and just loading up my boxes and I’m like, hold on, and went to my front door and there she goes just running off through my backyard,” Cortez told me.

“What did she steal?” I asked.

“Some catheter kits, ostomy supplies, just things that normal people don’t need,” he said.

Cortez needs those things “that normal people don’t need” because he’s been confined to a wheelchair, paralyzed from the chest down, ever since mid-June 2012 when his IMPD patrol car was broadsided by a drunk driver he was searching for on West Washington Street.

A recipient of the department’s Purple Heart for injuries suffered in the line of duty, more than a decade removed from the streets, Cortez is still a cop at heart.

”It’s something that is inside of you. Your DNA. I just miss it,” he said. ”There’s a few times when I arrested somebody’s kid and they came back later and said, ‘Thank you for what you did to my son. It changed his life,’ or, ‘thank you for helping me.’”

Cortez said it was a little odd inviting an IMPD officer into his home to take a report, a task he used to perform for crime victims in Haughville.

”Yeah, I definitely don’t like to play the victim,” he said. “I like to show everyone you can do anything.”

The woman who stole Cortez’ ostomy supplies was a slight blonde with a ponytail, dressed in black with a white shawl and a dark knit cap, running through a neighbor’s yard with a bright pink bag full of stolen items to a waiting a small gray four-door car waiting on Sly Fox Lane.

”They’re doing crimes that they don’t care. They’re just in it for themselves. That’s what criminals are,” said Cortez. ”What are you gonna do? I couldn’t drive my wheelchair off the porch to chase her down.”

If you recognize the woman whose image was captured on security video in Franklin Township south of Southport Road Wednesday morning, call Crimestoppers at 317-262-TIPS. Your information could lead to a cash reward.