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Man who helped save woman in beating: 'I just let him have it'
| Thursday, Aug 7 2008 9:59 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Aug 8 2008 7:13 AM
Extending an apology to the man he helped knock out, Anthony Gonzalez said Thursday he wishes things had gone differently.
Photos:
Anthony Gonzalez
Gayle Sullivan
Jerry Bogue, accused of beating his ex-girlfriend with a stick and getting beat up himself by two men who came to the rescue of the woman. Bogue has a different version of what happened.
But on the night he pummeled Jerry Bogue, Gonzalez didn’t know how else to end a bad situation that looked like it could get a whole lot worse. He saw Bogue standing over an unconscious woman, in a stance suggesting he was about to hit her.
So Gonzalez and Travis Martin, the woman’s boyfriend, gave Bogue a taste of his own medicine, according to Gonzalez.
“I just let him have it, you know,” Gonzalez said.
Deputies differ slightly with Gonzalez’s version of events, but they confirm the basics: Bogue beat Gayle Sullivan, his ex-girlfriend, with a stick and was then beaten unconscious himself by Gonzalez and Martin. Bogue remains in jail while both Martin and Gonzalez have been released, the prosecutor’s office declining to press charges against them.
Sullivan has said she would be dead if the two men hadn’t come to her rescue.
Bogue has said he was the only victim and he never touched Sullivan, but authorities disagree. He was arraigned on charges of spousal abuse and assault with a deadly weapon other than a gun.
Gonzalez was held several days because his arrest violated his probation, but he said there should be no repercussions against him since charges weren’t filed. He has two more months left at Lance’s Haven, a “sober living home” where he’s fulfilling a one-year court-ordered commitment for a methamphetamine addiction.
Petra Ortiz, Gonzalez’s wife, and others in the community have called Gonzalez a hero for what he did on July 30, but Gonzalez said if he could do it over again he would have called 911 before looking for Sullivan on Wilson Avenue in Oildale.
She had gone to Bogue’s residence to confront him about slashing her tires and a children’s pool, and when she didn’t return Martin and Gonzalez walked the short distance to Bogue’s place from their apartments on Lincoln Avenue.
Gonzalez said he and Martin were arrested almost immediately after the fight. He knew he could face some serious time in jail for violating probation, but he hoped the circumstances of the incident worked in his favor. They did.
Now he just wants to continue his rehab and working at his new job at McDonald’s. He’s grateful things turned out the way they did.
“This is the one time I actually thought justice was on my side,” Gonzalez said.