A lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan and his wife attending their first ever game had their “world turned upside down” when they were brutally attacked while trying to break up an argument at AT&T Stadium.
Wenceslao Gonzalez received tickets to his beloved Cowboys vs. Baltimore Ravens game in Arlington on Sept. 22 as a birthday present from his wife, Lindsay, and daughter.
Gonzalez: “I never thought I'd be able to go to the game.'' told KTVT. “It was very special for me to have my wife and daughter do that for me.”
After the match, family members witnessed a man hitting a young woman and tried to break up a violent altercation, the paper said.
“She was sobbing and looked scared and looked a lot like my daughter's age,” Lindsey Gonzalez said.
Wenceslao Gonzalez, who was the first to intervene, got into an argument with a man, later identified as 32-year-old Rafael Antonio Ramirez, and punched him in the face.
Later, when Lindsey Gonzalez tried to separate the two, Ramirez directed his anger at her.
The man knocked her unconscious with one punch and then kicked her in the face as she lay motionless, the newspaper reported, citing Arlington police.
Gonzalez said he suffered 12 fractures around his left eye, left cheek and nose, and was diagnosed with a fractured jaw.
“I know he was in my husband's face, and he had already punched my husband in the face,” she said. “I was trying to pull them away and that's all I remember. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital.”
She was photographed lying in a hospital bed with her right eye barely open due to swelling and her left eye covered.
She underwent surgery on September 24, Wenceslao Gonzalez said.
Wenceslao Gonzalez suffered a broken leg, according to a GoFundMe page organized by the couple's daughter Emma.
Emma Gonzalez said her parents have lost their jobs since the incident.
Ramirez, 32, was arrested and charged with two counts of assault causing bodily harm after the attack.
He was released on bail from the Tarrant County Jail on September 23, according to reports. Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The relationship between Ramirez and the woman is unknown.
Lindsey Gonzalez wants justice for what her alleged attacker did to her family.
“I never want to do anything bad to anyone and I never want to see harm come to anyone,” she claimed. “That said, I want him to pay for what he did and I want it to be fair and just. Our whole world has been turned upside down. After this… , our lives may never be the same.”
The Gonzalezs say their first Cowboys game will likely be their last because they don't feel safe inside the $1.15 billion stadium, which opened in 2009.
“I never want to go back there,” Lindsey Gonzalez said.
The family wondered why it took forever for law enforcement to arrive at the altercation.
“It was really frustrating that we didn't have more police presence, we didn't have security guards around to do the job they were supposed to do,” said Emma Hernandez, the couple's daughter.
Last year, a bloody brawl broke out between Jets and Cowboys fans inside the stadium.
During the regular season game, multiple fights broke out throughout the concourse as police escorted bloodied and battered fans from the scene of the chaos.
