Major League Baseball

Parole agent's tip led to suspect arrest

Published May. 22, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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Police in Los Angeles, following a tip from a parole agent, arrested one of two suspects believed to have been involved in the beating of San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

The Los Angeles Police Department booked 31-year-old Giovanni Ramirez for assault with a deadly weapon and he was being held on $1 million bail.

According to the report, police and SWAT teams surrounded an apartment complex in the East Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles at about 7:00am Sunday. Using loudspeakers, and with guns drawn, they called out the occupants of a single apartment.

According to a witness, one of the men escorted out appeared to match a sketch issued by police shortly after Stow was savagely beaten outside Dodger Stadium on March 31.

The man was described as bald with tattoos on his neck and arms. Police did not release the names of those taken from the apartment, but confirmed one of them was a suspect in the Opening Day beating.

The apartment building manager, Maritza Camacho, told the Times the man taken into custody had not been living at the complex long, saying she had begun seeing him come and go over the past few months.

Stow, a 42-year-old paramedic from Santa Cruz, was knocked to the ground and repeatedly kicked in the head during the unprovoked attack in the stadium parking lot.

The father of two suffered brain damage and has been unconscious since the assault. He was flown to San Francisco General Hospital Monday to be closer to his parents, Ann and David Stow.

The reward for information leading to an arrest had grown to more than $200,000 and the suspects' sketches were plastered on approximately 200 billboards in the Los Angeles area.

Police sources told the Times a parole agent recently came forward, telling police he believed one of his parolees may have been the attacker because he noticed the suspect resembled a police sketch of one of the assailants.

The agent also noticed the suspect had gotten new tattoos to almost his entire neck, leading police to believe he was covering an old one that had been described by a witness.

Police announced earlier in the week they were also looking for a woman, believed to be in her 20s, who may have driven the two assailants away in her car after the incident.

Police also believed the woman had a 10-year-old boy in the car.

The Giants issued a statement Sunday saying the arrest was "welcome news in what has been a very difficult time for the Stow family."

"We commend the Los Angeles Police Department for their hard work and we are confident that they will continue to dedicate themselves until all of those responsible for this senseless act of violence have been brought to justice," the team's statement read.

Doctors said Wednesday Stow had shown some small signs of improvement. Stow's seizures had been brought under control, according to his doctors, which allowed him to come off one of five anti-seizure medications. He remains in critical condition.

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