A deputy shot a man who authorities say
was outside a World Wrestling Entertainment training facility in central
Florida after becoming obsessed with a female wrestler.
Orange
County Sheriff Jerry Demings said the man had life-threatening injuries
after he was shot in Orlando Monday, and he was undergoing surgery at a
local hospital.
The sheriff didn't immediately identify the man, though media reports named him as 29-year-old Armando Montalvo.
Demings
says the deputy had no choice but to shoot the man, who he believed
had a knife outside the WWE Performance Center in Orlando and allegedly
charged the officer.
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Demings says the deputy tried to retreat for about 75 feet before firing his gun, according to press conference video posted on WFTV.
The
sheriff says there was a court order prohibiting the man from being on
WWE property since he had been stalking a female wrestler.
However, he said that the order was recent and had not yet been served on the man.
The
sheriff wouldn't identify the wrestler, though on his social media
Montalvo posted extensively about three-time WWE Divas champion AJ Lee,
28.
In one post he posts a picture of a
the wrestler's chest as a desktop background and said, 'She's the
finest ghost to ever bang! !! #WWE'.
In another he posted a photo of Lee and said 'I love u skip to my heart !!!!'.
Lee,
whose real name is April Mendez, retired from WWE this spring, with
many speculating that it was because she was pregnant with husband and
fellow wrestler CM Punk. Punk denied the rumor.
The
order against Montalvo came after previous incidents at the WWE center,
where he said he was trying to get a job, according to TMZ.
References
to feces or 'dookie' also feature prominently on a Youtube account run
by Montalvo, where he posted a series of videos saying that he wanted to
have sex with Lee.
In one ten-minute rambling video he said that he is 'the chosen one' and was 'rising through the matrix' to be with her.
He also regularly tagged Ghostbusters actors such as Dan Aykroyd in his posts.
One one incident he allegedly spread
his feces and urine on the building and during another he was said to
have come to the area with a large chain.
Demings
said that the man who was shot had previously been 'Baker Acted',
referring to a Florida law that allows law enforcement officers and
mental health professionals to conduct involuntary examinations of those
believed to be mentally ill.
The WWE
deferred to law enforcement but said: 'Unfortunately a deranged
individual with no WWE affiliation, who had a court order prohibiting
him from being on WWE property, was involved in an incident with an
Sheriff’s deputy in the parking lot of the WWE Performance Center.'
The
Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the shooting
while local authorities investigate a possibly assault on their officer.
