Response from Jeremy Flores

Jeremy Flores was recently involved in an incident at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast, which resulted in his disqualification from the Burleigh Breaka Pro. Sunny Garcia’s 16-year-old son, Stone, was surfing in the contest area during a one-hour holding-period, when he allegedly got into an altercation with a 21-year-old local. Jeremy, who was also in the water at the time, paddled over and intervened. The fray moved to shore, at which point J-FLo and the local went toe-to-toe. Sunny, who’d been watching from the rocks, bolted down and put the local in a headlock. Sunny then walked to the showers, where he had a second altercation with a cameraman. The cameraman laid charges against Sunny but yesterday formally withdrew his assault charge.

Jeremy, for the first time since a brief news interview immediately following the fight, has spoken publicly about the incident. On his website, J-Flo made the following statement (un-edited by Stab):

“Hey for now, all i can say is that everything that has been said on the news and all the stories people hear are told in a different way which makes it look very bad. I just stood up for 16 years old Stone Garcia while a local surfer was getting aggressive with him. Next thing,everybody knows,he got aggressive with me, i defended myself and we went at each other fighting face to face all the way to the beach.Somebody told Stone’s dad,Sunny Garcia,that his son was in trouble so he ran down.Any parents would of done the same thing if their son were in trouble. Anyway,the ASP decided to take me out of the event because a new rule says that no violence should be tolerated in a professional event,i agree with that rule 100% but it wasn’t the case for me,i just defended myself while i was training in the contest area before my heat. People have to understand that family and friends are everything for me and i will never walk away from it (especially when it’s a under 18 boy ). I hate violence and i never get into any troubles like that. I love Australia and i have most of my best friends here. All the Burleigh boys have always been so nice to me so i won’t let this story change that. I’m so sad this story happened but i don’t regret anything,these things happen in life unfortunately and i will never let anyone walk thru me !”