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Providence police have arrested an 18-year-old Cranston man in connection with the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Joseph Ramos, a killing that unfolded in the early morning hours amid what authorities describe as a chaotic scene involving a large gathering and physical altercations.
Officers discovered Ramos in the roadway around 2:17 a.m. Monday on Swift Street near Silver Spring Street, suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. He was pronounced dead at the hospital, becoming another statistic in a year that has already seen too much violence in Rhode Island’s capital.
The suspect, Charles Ortiz, now faces a litany of serious charges: murder, conspiracy to commit murder, drive-by shooting, conspiracy to commit a drive-by shooting, discharging a firearm while committing a crime of violence, and reckless driving. Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez confirmed that officers had already been dispatched to the area before the shots rang out, responding to reports of a disturbance. By the time they arrived, Ramos was dying in the street.
According to investigators, Ramos was riding a three-wheeled motorbike when he was gunned down. An online video circulating in the aftermath shows a large crowd and physical fight in the same area where the shooting occurred. While Chief Perez couldn’t definitively confirm the connection between the gathering and the homicide, the three-wheeled motorbike visible in that footage matches the description of Ramos’s vehicle.
What draws a crowd at 2:17 in the morning? What kind of dispute escalates from a street fight to execution-style gun violence? These are the questions Providence residents are asking themselves as another young life is cut short on their streets. Joseph Ramos was just 20 years old—old enough to vote, old enough to serve his country, but not old enough to survive a night out in his own city.
Ortiz is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday morning, where prosecutors will begin building their case against him. For the Ramos family, no amount of legal proceedings will bring their son back. For Providence, this marks the second homicide of 2026—a number that sounds small until you’re the one planning a funeral for someone who should have had decades ahead of them.
The streets of Providence belong to its law-abiding citizens, not to those who would settle disputes with bullets. Chief Perez and his department have their work cut out for them, but arrests alone won’t solve what ails this community.
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