Seventeen Year Old Charged with Homicide after Punching Referee

The unnamed teen was apparently receiving a penalty during his soccer game as goalie at Eisenhower Junior High in Taylorsville, Utah when he angrily punched the referee in the jaw. Ricardo Portillo fell to the ground, began vomiting blood and was rushed to the hospital after the hit. There he fell into a coma and then died almost a week later on May 4.

The seventeen year old was charged with homicide Wednesday for administering an allegedly fatal punch to Portillo. In addition to the homicide charge, a third degree felony homicide by assault may be administered as well. The court is trying to decide now whether to try him as a juvenile or as an adult, as his eighteenth birthday occurs in October.

If he is tried in juvenile court, he would stay in a detention penitentiary until he turns twenty-one; if he is tried as an adult, he faces up to five years in prison. It is all a matter of how severe the crime is that determines the method of trial.

The forty-six year old referee died from a blow to the head that caused traumatic brain injury and internal bleeding in the skull. Though it may have seemed like simply a punch to show his frustration to the teen, it is hard to deny that its power caused serious damage.

He was arrested two days after the April 27th game, and is still being held in juvenile detention as he awaits his trial. It is an unfortunate turn of events for the boy as it is likely that his goal was not to kill the man, only vent his anger; but sometimes accidents like that happen.