Man who beat up umpire at high school game arrested

The Osceola County Sheriff's Office has arrested a Kissimmee man who is shown on video attacking the umpire at his son's high school baseball game on April 18.

Jorge Aponte Gonzalez, 41,  was arrested Wednesday and charged with Battery on a Sports Official, a felony, and Disruption of a School Function when police say, and video of the incident backs up, that he struck the umpire in the back of the head, briefly knocking him unconscious, at the game at Liberty High School. He was held on a $1,500 bond, but jail records showed he had been released by early Thursday morning.

Sheriff Marcos Lopez said the man was "defending his kid," during the game between Liberty High and Kissimmee Victory Charter, a 10-9 Liberty win.

Lopez said the player had verbally abused umpire during the game, and the umpire attempted to maintain control. After the game, video shows the umpire standing at and opened gate, when back is turned, the suspect, later identified as Aponte Gonzalez, strikes the umpire, who immediately falls to the ground.

"This umpire is a 63-year-old man, a disabled military veteran who does this because he has passion for baseball and likes to give back to his community, a man who I'd met playing dominoes and it's a coincidence he's the victim in this," Lopez said. "You can clearly see parents and players were upset by this. You don't see this very often."

During Lopez's press conference on this matter Wednesday, he showed video of Aponte Gonzalez being led to jail, and he's exchanging words with Lopez and showing little remorse.

"He said he was defending his kid. I said he was being funny, that's no the way to defending your kid, there's no reason for him to be acting this way. No parent should act like this in public," Lopez said, noting the umpire is requesting to prosecute the case to the full extent of the law, so that Aponte Gonzalez, "Never again does this to anybody again. We've had reports he's gone to games at other schools and caused disruptions, but not to this level. He said it took two weeks to make the arrest in order for detectives to "do the ground work" to identify Aponte Gonzalez as the assailant in this case.