Major League Baseball

LAPD looking into video of Giants fan

Published Jun. 27, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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Los Angeles police on Monday were examining a video that purportedly shows the San Francisco Giants fan who was brutally beaten at Dodgers Stadium being confronted by another fan in the bleachers shortly before he was assaulted in the parking lot after the opening day game.

The few seconds of grainy video posted Monday by TMZ.com show a man in a blue Dodgers hat and jersey pointing a finger at someone in a black and orange shirt who resembles Bryan Stow. The man is a foot or two away. The hands of the man in the black shirt are up defensively or placatingly. The Dodgers fan then curses in Spanish and turns away.

''Detectives are currently looking at the video to determine whether or not it's going to be helpful to the investigation and the investigation is currently ongoing,'' police spokeswoman Jacquelyn Abad said.

Stow, a 42-year-old Santa Cruz paramedic and father of two, was wearing Giants apparel at the March 31 game. Police said that after the game, two men attacked Stow in the stadium parking lot. He was knocked down, beaten and left in critical condition with head injuries.

The confrontation shown in the video ''appears to be the tail end of a verbal confrontation,'' said TMZ.com, which declined to discuss how it obtained the video.

''We do not release information on our sources,'' TMZ.com publicist Casey Carver said an email.

Asked whether TMZ.com had confirmed that the video was genuine and taken on opening day, Carver responded in another email: ''We confirm all stories that are put up on the site.''

John Stow, Bryan Stow's cousin, said he watch the video and agreed that it definitely shows his cousin.

''The girl who actually took the video talked to our family this morning,'' he said. ''She said this guy was kinda coming in and trying to instigate a fight with my cousin. Bryan just put his hands up and told him to respect the game. You see his hands are up in the air.''

It's not easy to watch the video, knowing that his cousin was beaten later that the evening, John Stow said.

Doctors at San Francisco General Hospital announced last week that Bryan Stow's condition had been upgraded to serious but his prospects of recovery are uncertain.

Police have said that Giovanni Ramirez, 31, is the main suspect in Stow's beating. Ramirez was arrested in May and recently was sent back to prison for 10 months for a parole violation involving access to a gun. However, he has not been charged in connection with Stow's beating and his lawyers contend that he was not at Dodger Stadium that night.

The man in the video, donning a blue No. 23 Dodgers jersey with "Banda" written across the back, was later identified by TMZ as "die-hard" fan Juan Banda.

Banda reportedly identified himself to police when workmates from his office encouraged him to call the LAPD after seeing the video.
 

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