Giovanni Ramirez's nine-year-old daughter held a press conference yesterday evening declaring her father's innocence. Ramirez is the suspected "main aggressor" in the brutal Dodgers Stadium beating of Bryan Stow, a Giants fan. To maintain the daughter's anonymity, her face was blurred in video footage and her name withheld by local media.
The fourth-grader was accompanied by her mother and Ramirez's lawyers, one of whom had a protective hand on her shoulder through most of the press conference. She is touted by Ramirez's defense team as his airtight alibi, and in her first public appearance she defended her father from the allegations that he attacked Bryan Stow at Dodgers Stadium.
The press conference was light on the facts of the day in question, and instead focused on the emotional impact Ramirez's arrest and subsequent trial-by-media has had on his young daughter. She said, "I think it's not my Dad, and I pretty much know it's not him. And other people are saying that it is him, so that part makes me mad. But then I'm also sad because he's in jail right now."
The daughter claims that she and her father spent the whole day together, mostly sleeping and hanging out at home. She also addressed the difference between the police sketch, which depicts a shaved head, and the state of her father's hair at the time of the March 31 attack: "I'd tell him to shave it and stuff, but he didn't want to listen." It wasn't until several days after the attack, the daughter maintains, that he shaved his head.
The mother of Ramirez's daughter also made a statement: "I just want everyone to see, you know, there is her side of the story... everything that's been broadcast has been against him, and making him look like a bad person. So, you know, people need to know he is a father. She needs her dad, and it does affect her." Before the press conference, the daughter had spent about an hour with the LAPD, going over the events of May 31, reports KTLA.
Currently, Giovanni Ramirez is being held in jail on charges that he violated his parole with possession of an assault weapon unrelated to the Dodgers Stadium attack, reports the Associated Press. His attorneys emphasized that there was no evidence related to the Bryan Stow beating that is currently holding their client in jail. Ramirez was offered the chance to automatically go to jail for 12 months for his parole violation, but he instead opted to take his chances at a full parole revocation hearing on June 20.
Earlier this week, Ramirez underwent two lie-detector tests, one under the supervision of his lawyers and another supervised by the LAPD. Results have not yet been released, but both Ramirez's lawyers and LAPD chief Charlie Beck say that the tests were carried out to their satisfactions.
In an interview with KTLA, Beck declined to comment on the results of the polygraph tests or any other details in the developing case against Giovanni Ramirez. "I'm not going to try this case in the media or in the public. I'm going to try it in court," said Beck. Still, he admits that the LAPD hasn't yet filed a formal case with the District Attorney. He maintains that the LAPD has "more than enough" evidence to try Ramirez, and attributes the delay in filing to making sure that "all our Ts are crossed and our Is are dotted."