EP Boxer Rodriguez Recovering After Scottsdale Stabbing

El Paso heavyweight boxer David “El Nino” Rodriguez continues to recover from an attack outside Joe’s Pizza last week in Scottsdale, Ariz, where a witness said he saw a stabbing victim “showing off his muscles” and yelling racial slurs.

The stabbing occurred about 2:30 a.m. Dec. 30 outside the restaurant, where a second man was also wounded. The Scottsdale Police Department provided an investigation report from the night of the incident, but the victims’ and one of the witnesses’ names have been blacked out.

According to the report, a taxi driver named Omar took the two victims from the El Hefe bar to the pizza restaurant, where he, too, got out to get something to eat. The driver was outside of the restaurant when he saw three black men and a Hispanic woman approach the victims.

One of the men asked to borrow a lighter when, the cab driver said, one of the victims became belligerent, took off his shirt and started “showing off his muscles.” The victim began yelling at and pushing the men, yelling the slurs.

One of the men then swung at the shirtless victim, striking him in the face. The driver told police he thought the man punched the victim, but he noticed that the man had a small knife in between his fingers.

The driver said the woman tried to stop the fight before she and the three men fled the scene. The driver only described the men as being black with no facial hair. He said he would be able to identify the men if he saw them in a photo line-up, the report said.

An officer in uniform who was nearby was flagged down and told that someone needed help at Joe’s Pizza. When he arrived at the restaurant, the officer saw two men who appeared to be bleeding, including the shirtless man with a large laceration to the left side of his face. The other victim was bleeding from his upper left arm.

The victim told police he didn’t know what happened and kept asking, “Did you get the guys?” According to the police report, the two victims appeared to be highly intoxicated — both had bloodshot, watery eyes, smelled like alcohol and were slurring their words.

The first victim was walking around in circles and jumping around. When the officer asked if he could provide more information, the victim reportedly yelled, “You’re letting them get away! … the black guys who did this.”

Another witness told police that even though he didn’t see the attack, he heard one of the victims yell, “You (expletive, racial slur)!” When he turned around to see what was going on, he saw the two victims walking around covered in blood.