MMA/BoxingPolice Blotter

Hector “Macho” Camacho Was Shot In The Face In Puerto Rico And Might Be Brain Dead

Boxer Hector “Macho” Camacho, who was shot in the face and neck last night in the Puerto Rican city of Bayamon, is reportedly brain dead.

Camacho was shot in the head and neck on Tuesday night, after the car he was a passenger in was fired upon. The driver of the car was killed.

Although police are still investigating the shooting, there’s a strong sentiment that this wasn’t just some random act of violence. The mercurial Camacho, who was born in Puerto Rico, raised in Spanish Harlem, and first jailed when he was 15 for repeated street fights, has always been in trouble. He’s currently facing charges in Orange County for child abuse after allegedly picking up his teenage son by the neck, “slamming him to the ground and stomping on him.”

George Diaz, the Orlando Sentinel sports columnist who’s covered Camacho since his 80s and 90s heydey, characterized the suspicions around the former WBO and WBC champion’s shooting thusly:

Cleary, Camacho was a victim here. But was it a random shooting? Is it fair to connect the dots of this incident to Camacho’s troubled past? I suspect there is something more to the story than random violence.

Camacho, as Diaz notes, has “always been a troubled soul, beset by issues with domestic violence, drugs and other personal missteps.”

The newest report about Camacho’s condition comes via Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Dia. The paper is also reporting that Camacho was taken off life support, and doctors are pegging his prognosis as “very poor” after he suffered cardiac arrest last night. Earlier reports said that, were Camacho to survive, it’s possible he’d be paralyzed.

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