David Ortiz hired Boston's former top cop to look into the shooting that nearly killed the former Red Sox slugger in June in the Dominican Republic, according to multiple reports.
Former Boston police commissioner Ed Davis' firm, The Edward Davis Co., was hired a few weeks after Ortiz returned to Boston.
"He's damn interested in finding out what really happened,'' Ortiz spokesman Joe Baerlein told The Boston Globe.
Baerlein, who also is principal owner of The Edward Davis Co., confirmed the firm's hiring to ABC News (via ESPN.com).
Baerlein told ABC News that his company is "monitoring and analyzing information from various sources in the Dominican Republic around the motives for the shooting of Ortiz on June 9," as well as now providing personal security to Ortiz and his family.
Ortiz, 43, was shot in the back at a nightclub in Santo Domingo the night of June 9. The next day the Red Sox flew him back to Boston, where he was hospitalized seven weeks and underwent multiple surgeries for life-threatening injuries.
Ortiz has not spoken to Dominican or U.S. authorities since the night of the incident, Baerlein told The Globe.
More than a dozen people have been arrested in connection with the shooting, but Dominican authorities, who initially described it as an intentional hit on Ortiz, have since said their investigation led them to think the shooting was a case of mistaken identity rather than one in which Ortiz was targeted.
"David has been carefully monitoring the government and police investigation,'' Baerlein said. "He had no basis for a long time to challenge their theory of mistaken identity. However, as new facts continue to come up, it lends some optimism that there may be some other conclusions that are drawn before it's over about why David was shot.''
A 10-time All-Star, Ortiz is an icon in Boston, where he helped lead the Red Sox to three World Series titles.
He was released from the hospital at the end of July and appeared healthy in an Instagram post Sunday in which he said he was dropping his daughter off at college.
