SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio summer league game ended up with punches flying after a 47-year-old man and a juvenile took their riled-up sports discussion to the next level.
An SAISD Police Department report says the suspect, Pedro Alberto Hernandez Garcia, claims he was defending himself when he started hitting another male. The suspect told police he didn’t know he was hitting a teenager.
Nathan Aguilar, 15, says there was no mistake. He had just finished his game and was sitting next to other teammates.
“I had my uniform, I think was around my neck with my basketball bag,” Aguilar said.
The teen said he was commenting on the game and didn’t know the player’s father was behind him.
“The dude gets up, and he like puts his whole body weight on me, and he puts the phone -- he’s recording -- he puts it in my face. I, like, smack it out of his hand,” Aguilar said about Hernandez Garcia.
What followed next was several punches to Aguilar’s head by a 6-foot tall, 260-pound man, the teen told KSAT.
Nathan is 5 feet 8 inches tall and is about half the man’s weight. His mother, Sophia Aguilar, was not at the game but rushed to it immediately after.
“It just pisses me off. How a man could do this to a kid -- it’s just a basketball game. You know, we are there to have fun,” she said.
Nathan Aguilar’s coach, Mike Moreno, stepped in to protect Nathan, and witnesses captured the suspect bringing Moreno to the grown and punching him several times.
The police report says cameras in the gym show Garcia was the instigator. He was arrested on two counts of assault causing bodily injury, a Class A misdemeanor.
Moreno says he has a black eye. Nathan suffered a concussion. Parents are questioning why there was no security at the game.
The game involved Madison High School and Stevens High School players at Edison High school who were playing in a San Antonio Basketball League. It was the last game for the league. The districts do not coordinate it.