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Boxer Tony Ayala shot while burglarizing home
- Thread starter bestdefense357
- Start date
The full text...
God may have created Man and Woman, but Sam Colt made them equal. I believe this would be a case in point.
LawDog
SAN ANTONIO (APBnews.com) -- Troubled boxer Tony Ayala Jr., who served 16 years in a New Jersey prison for rape, was shot by a woman whose home he had broken into early this morning and was later arrested on a burglary charge, police said.
Ayala, 37, was in stable condition and under police guard today with a gunshot wound to his shoulder at University Hospital. San Antonio police Sgt. Gabriel Trevino said Ayala was arrested on charge of burglary of a habitation with the intent to commit assault.
The exact details of the incident are sketchy; the woman had told police she only casually knew Ayala, while the fighter's manager claimed that the woman had been to Ayala's house for dinner.
Cops: History of rapes
Police said Ayala, who has been convicted of committing brutal rapes in Texas and New Jersey, broke into a home at 215 Colleen St. at about 3:45 a.m. Two women and two children occupied the home, Trevino said.
When Ayala allegedly entered the residence, one of the women pulled a .45-caliber Glock pistol and shot Ayala in the shoulder, Trevino said. She then called police. Trevino said authorities were not releasing the name of the woman, who has not been arrested.
"We don't know if he [Ayala] lives in the area," Trevino said. "One of the women who lives at the residence told us that she knew [Ayala] from seeing him at a workout facility but was not dating him."
Police said they did not know how Ayala entered the home.
Psychologist: Ayala knew victim
But Dr. Brian Raditz, a former New Jersey prison psychologist who later
became Ayala's manager, said that the boxer knew the women.
"At this point, I really don't have many of the specifics," Raditz told APBnews.com. "I knew he was at a friend's house and got shot in the shoulder. He knew the woman and she used to visit his house and have dinner."
At the height of his boxing career in 1983, Ayala broke into the apartment of a New Jersey schoolteacher and savagely raped her. He was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison. However, he was paroled from prison in 1999 and resumed his boxing career, according to New Jersey Department of Corrections officials.
Known as the 'Little Bull'
Nigel Collins, editor and chief of The Ring magazine, said that before being arrested and imprisoned for the New Jersey rape, Ayala was the top-ranked junior middleweight contender by the World Boxing Association.
"A lot of people compared him to a young Roberto Doran," Collins said. "He was a ferocious, hard-hitting, ruthless fighter. Obviously he was very popular as most fans always like slugger."
Ayala is known in boxing circles as "El Torito" -- the Little Bull. He is a former Gold Gloves champion and two-time Junior Olympic champion.
"If the charges are true, it would be a tragedy," Collins said. "He had done his time and was supposed to be rehabilitated. He said all the right things and seemed sincere."
Since being released from prison in New Jersey on April 20, 1999, Ayala, a native of San Antonio, resumed his boxing career and has had five fights. His last fight was a loss in July 2000. His career record stands at 26 wins, including 23 by knockout, and only one loss, Collins said.
Victim of child abuse?
But besides being a world-class fighter who was at one time just a step away from a title, Ayala has a history of alcohol abuse and violent sexual assaults. In past interviews, Ayala has stated that he was the victim of sexual assault by a family member as a child, but has refused to say who assaulted him.
When he was 15 years old, Ayala was sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting a girl in a San Antonio drive-in. He later was granted probation after paying the victim $40,000, authorities said.
In 1983, Ayala was convicted of first-degree sexual assault for the rape of the New Jersey teacher in Passaic County. A spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Corrections said that Ayala had served his 15-year mandatory minimum sentence and was not on parole when he was released.
Robert Anthony Phillips is an APBnews.com senior writer (robert.phillips@apbnews.com)
God may have created Man and Woman, but Sam Colt made them equal. I believe this would be a case in point.
LawDog
David Scott
New member
With this guy's priors, why the heck was he out and looking for another victim? It seems a single marijuana cigarette will get you more jail time than serial rape. Something is wrong here.
I just wish Senora con Glock had gone center mass instead of the shoulder.
I just wish Senora con Glock had gone center mass instead of the shoulder.
this is from http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/boxing/news/2000/12/12/ayala_shot_ap/
Did anyone happen to hear where she got the gun?
The woman was staying at the house with another woman and two children when Ayala entered through an unlocked back door at about 3:45 a.m., police said.
The women, armed with a handgun, confronted him and called the police. Ayala was shot when he made a threatening move, police said.
Did anyone happen to hear where she got the gun?
bestdefense357
New member
If ever there was a self-defense case the national media should jump on, it's this one: famous boxer, convicted felon just released from prison, teenage girl who saves herself from sexual assault and possibly more. But that would show the value of having a gun in the home, so it'll never happen. Robert
bestdefense357
New member
The text.
LawDog
Boxer Tony Ayala Jr.'s efforts to rebuild his life and once-promising career are in jeopardy after he was shot early Tuesday and charged with burglary with intent to commit assault.
An unidentified woman shot Ayala, 37, in the left shoulder after he was discovered in the Northwest Side house in which she was staying.
He was taken by ambulance to University Hospital, where he was treated under police guard. After being treated and released, Ayala was taken into custody.
He posted a $100,000 bond Tuesday night and was released from Bexar County Jail.
Allegations of Ayala's entry into the house early Tuesday bore some resemblance to his actions on New Year's Day 1983, when he broke into the apartment of a neighbor in West Paterson, N.J. He tied her up and raped her at knifepoint.
Ayala was high on heroin, cocaine and alcohol at the time. He later was found guilty on six counts of aggravated sexual assault and then sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Ayala's sentence was reduced to 30 years. He became eligible for parole in April 1998, but was denied by the New Jersey State Parole Board and ordered to serve 27 additional months.
Through good behavior and work credits, Ayala left Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, N.J., a free man on April 20, 1999.
While under police guard at the hospital Tuesday and facing a charge that provides a prison sentence up to 99 years, Ayala reportedly joked with longtime friend and attorney Johnny Cisneros while doctors patched his wound.
"His attitude is that he's doing fine," Cisneros told reporters at a news conference near the hospital's main entrance. "He's joking."
Cisneros predicted Ayala soon would be out of the hospital and back in the ring.
At the same time, Cisneros said he was more concerned about Ayala's recovery from the gunshot than the criminal charge his friend and client faces.
"My advice to him is not to talk to anyone about the circumstances of what happened," Cisneros said.
Events Tuesday were similar to those that have followed Ayala's ring career and his clashes with the law since he was a teen-age boxing phenomenon regarded as the best of Tony Ayala Sr.'s four prizefighter sons.
Ayala was convicted on charges ranging from burglary, to assault, to rape in both San Antonio and New Jersey while still a teen-ager.
After being released from prison in New Jersey last year, he set out to rebuild his boxing career.
That effort already had run into trouble because of injuries, but may have ended entirely at 3:40 a.m. Tuesday in a back room of the small, wood-frame house in the 200 block of Colleen Drive.
Police officials refused to identify the woman who they said shot Ayala.
Investigators said the woman told officers she awakened to find a dim figure of a man she didn't recognize in the darkened living room where she had been sleeping.
The woman slipped quietly out of the living room and down a hallway to a bedroom, where she alerted Sandra Gutierrez, who also was sleeping.
Gutierrez, 27, wearing only her underwear, got a .45-caliber Glock semiautomatic that she kept in the bedroom and accompanied the younger woman on a search of the house.
At that point, Gutierrez's two small children still were asleep in the other bedroom.
The two women found the man in the kitchen, police reported.
Gutierrez handed her gun to the 18-year-old while she put on sweat pants and checked on her two children.
According to the police report, the younger woman said she recognized Ayala as a man she had met at the gym where she worked out.
Police said Ayala reportedly told the woman he had come to the house to see her.
"I can't believe you're pointing a gun at me," the report quoted Ayala as telling the woman.
The woman holding the gun replied, "I can't believe you're in my house. I'll shoot you."
According to the report, Ayala took "about two steps toward" the woman, and she fired one shot.
The woman told officers she only had met Ayala at the gym both used and had no other relationship with him.
According to police, the woman said she had been the victim of a sexual assault and feared she would be assaulted again.
John Hogan, 38, who lives at the residence with Gutierrez but was working a night shift at San Antonio State Hospital when the shooting occurred, said Ayala was fortunate he wasn't more seriously wounded.
The handgun used to shoot Ayala wasn't loaded as usual with hollowpoint bullets, Hogan said.
She normally slept in the living room, he said. Hogan said the woman had met Ayala at a gym where she worked out but didn't have a relationship with the prizefighter.
Ayala did give the woman a ride home about six weeks ago, but Hogan said he told the woman not to allow Ayala to drive her home again.
Hogan said Ayala had never been inside the house before Tuesday morning.
While investigators said Ayala entered the house through an unlocked back door, Hogan said that wasn't the case.
Hogan said the back door was locked and that Ayala probably crawled through an unlocked window.
A prosecutor for Passaic County, N.J., who helped convict Ayala said he should have served all 35 years of his original sentence.
"We fought his parole as long as we could," Passaic County prosecutor Marilyn Zdobinski said. "You could have almost predicted that this was going to happen based on his background. I hope they prosecute him to the max in San Antonio. He is a habitual, vicious criminal, and he's not going to change."
bhendricks@express-news.net
LawDog