Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the trial of a man accused of shooting a security guard at a West Side sports bar, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.<\/p>\n
Wilmer Vladimir Ruiz Ortega, 30, faces four counts of aggravated assault in connection with the May 4, 2025, shooting outside El Patio Sports Bar on Frio City Road. Opening statements are expected to begin Tuesday.<\/p>\n
According to a San Antonio police report, security guard Jimmy\u00a0Friesenhahn was patting down Ruiz Ortega when he discovered a handgun in his pants. Investigators said the two struggled over the weapon before Ruiz Ortega shot Friesenhahn, who was wearing a ballistic vest.<\/p>\n
If convicted,\u00a0Ruiz Ortega could face up to life in prison.<\/p>\n
According to police,\u00a0Ruiz Ortega tried to leave the scene in a vehicle, but other security guards detained him until officers arrived.<\/p>\n
Friesenhahn was taken to a hospital in critical condition after suffering two gunshot wounds to the chest and one to the neck.<\/p>\n
At the time of the shooting,\u00a0Friesenhahn’s child was 5 months old. He is also a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.<\/p>\n
Family members said\u00a0Friesenhahn underwent multiple spinal surgeries before doctors determined he was paralyzed from the chest down.<\/p>\n
His brother-in-law, Emmanuel Martinez, told the San Antonio Express-News it was initially unclear whether\u00a0Friesenhahn would speak again because a bullet tore through his thyroid cartilage near his vocal cords.<\/p>\n
Martinez said\u00a0Friesenhahn has continued to make progress in his recovery but still faces a long rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
Ruiz Ortega has remained in the Bexar County Jail since his arrest. Jail records show he is being held under a federal immigration detainer.<\/p>\n
The shooting also drew national political attention. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz shared\u00a0Friesenhahn’s story on X, writing, “My thoughts and prayers are with Jimmy Friesenhahn tonight, a Marine veteran and a Texan, who is fighting for his life after being shot by an illegal alien. His attacker never should’ve been in our country.”<\/p>\n
Court records show\u00a0Ruiz Ortega was arrested in 2020 on a charge of driving while intoxicated. The case was later reduced to the misdemeanor offense of obstruction of a highway, and he received deferred adjudication in 2022. Court records show that probation was revoked in 2024 after he repeatedly failed to appear in court, and a judge later ordered him to serve 35 days in jail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the trial of a man accused of shooting a security…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-450505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}