Police will consider additional charges as Ricardo Portillo, 46, dies after being punched for showing a yellow card
A soccer referee who slipped into a coma after being punched by a teenage player during a game a week ago died on Saturday night, police said.
Ricardo Portillo, 46, of Salt Lake City passed away at the hospital, where he was being treated following an assault. Police have accused a 17-year-old player in a recreational soccer league of punching Portillo after the man called a foul on him and showed him a yellow card. "The suspect was close to Portillo and punched him once in the face as a result of the call," spokesman Justin Hoyal said in a press release.
The teen has been booked into juvenile detention on suspicion of aggravated assault. Hoyal said authorities will consider additional charges since Portillo has died. He said an autopsy is planned. No cause of death was released. Portillo suffered swelling in his brain and had been listed in critical condition, Dr Shawn Smith said Thursday at the Intermountain Medical Center in the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray.
The victim's family, which publicly spoke of Portillo's plight this past week, has asked for privacy, Hoyal said. Johana Portillo, 26, said last week that she wasn't at the 27 April game in the Salt Lake City suburb of Taylorsville, but she said she's been told by witnesses and detectives that the player hit her father in the side of the head.
"When he was writing down his notes, [the player] just came out of nowhere and punched him," she said.
Accounts from a police report, Portillo's daughter and others further detail what occurred. The teenager was playing in goal during a game at Eisenhower Junior High School in Taylorsville, when Portillo showed him a yellow card for pushing an opposing forward. The teenager, who was quite a bit heavier than Portillo, began arguing with the referee, then punched him in the face. Portillo seemed fine at first, then asked to be held because he felt dizzy. He sat down and started vomiting blood, triggering his friend to call an ambulance.
When police arrived around noon, the teenager was gone and Portillo was laying on the ground in the fetal position. Through translators, Portillo told emergency workers that his face and back hurt and he felt nauseous. He had no visible injuries and remained conscious. He was considered to be in fair condition when they took him to the Intermountain Medical Center. But when Portillo arrived to the hospital, he slipped into a coma with swelling in his brain. Johana Portillo called detectives to let them know his condition had worsened.
By Saturday evening, the teenager goalkeeper's father had agreed to bring him down to speak with police. Portillo's family said he had been attacked before, and Johanna Portillo said she and her sisters begged their father to stop refereeing because of the risk from angry players, but he continued because he loved soccer.
"It was his passion," she said. "We could not tell him no."