Former world boxing champion Hector “Macho” Camacho died Saturday after being removed from life support just days after he was shot in the face.
The director of the hospital treating him in Puerto Rico says Camacho went into cardiac arrest overnight and died soon after being disconnected from life support.
The 50-year-old Puerto Rican boxing great had been declared brain dead on Thursday.
He was shot on Tuesday, while in a car parked outside a liquor store near the Puerto Rican capital of San Juan. Camacho's friend and driver of the car was killed at the scene.
Police found nine small bags of cocaine in the friend's pocket and another open bag inside the car.
It is unclear whether the two men were deliberately targeted or victims of a random act of violence. Police are investigating the shooting.
After growing up in New York's Spanish Harlem neighborhood, Camacho went on to become a three-time world boxing champion with a record of 79-6-3 across his three-decade career, including 38 knockouts.
In the 1980s, he was one of boxing's most flamboyant personalities and fought a number of the sport's big names, including Oscar de la Hoya, Julio Cesar Chavez and Sugar Ray Leonard. Camacho knocked out Leonard in 1997 ending his attempt to make a comeback.
Despite his successes as a boxer, outside the ring, Camacho battled drug and alcohol problems and was arrested many times. Charges against him included domestic abuse, drug possession and burglary. Earlier this year, he was accused of beating one of his sons.
(Photo by By Azalia Negron, 2009)
