Police say a San Antonio father was lured outside, stabbed and pinned against a car while picking up his children.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — A child custody exchange outside a San Antonio YMCA ended in bloodshed Feb. 19, and police now say the attack was not spontaneous. Investigators allege the children’s mother drew the father outside the building so her former boyfriend could stab him during the evening handoff.

Why the case matters now is that both people named in the arrest affidavits are now charged, giving prosecutors a fuller account of what officers say happened outside the Davis-Scott Family YMCA on Iowa Street. Abel Ali Rivas, 27, and Melanie Sierra Gomez, 31, each face aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charges in the attack on 32-year-old Oscar Javier Barbosa, who survived and later identified both of them to investigators.

The sequence described in court records begins with a routine exchange. Barbosa went to the YMCA at about 6:30 p.m. to pick up his two children, according to the affidavits cited by local outlets. Police said he had been talking by phone with Gomez, his former partner. First, she told him to go inside the building to get the children. Then, according to investigators, she called again and told him to come back outside. When Barbosa stepped out, police said, Rivas was waiting. He greeted Barbosa with “What’s up?” and within moments a verbal dispute began. Barbosa, who had also placed a call to his current girlfriend, could be heard asking, “Are you going to stab me over this?” before the call cut off, according to the woman’s account to police.

Investigators say the confrontation quickly turned violent. According to the affidavits, Gomez accused Barbosa of getting his current girlfriend pregnant. Police say she then told Rivas to move ahead and “do what you are going to do.” Officers allege Rivas stabbed Barbosa several times in the abdomen and arms, causing serious but not life-threatening injuries. Gomez is accused of helping hold Barbosa against a vehicle so he could not get away. Officers responding around 6:40 p.m. outside the YMCA in the 1200 block of Iowa Street found Barbosa wounded in the parking area. He was taken to a hospital for treatment. Police said his current girlfriend, who was on the phone during part of the encounter, told officers she recognized Rivas’ voice because she had previously been in a 10-year relationship with him.

The setting sharpened the allegations. The Davis-Scott branch is a neighborhood YMCA on San Antonio’s East Side, a place associated with youth programs and family activities, not violent crime. The affidavits say Barbosa had arrived there to retrieve the couple’s children, making the location and timing central to the case narrative. The records cited by local reporters do not say whether the children saw the stabbing, and that remains unclear. They also do not answer whether the exchange had been set by a court order or an informal arrangement between the parents. What is clear from the charging documents is that investigators treated the handoff as the opening scene of a targeted assault rather than a fight that erupted without warning.

After the stabbing, police said, Rivas did not stay at the scene. Investigators allege he got into Barbosa’s car, which had been left running, and drove away without consent. Gomez, according to the affidavits, remained briefly, continued insulting Barbosa’s current girlfriend, and then left as well. Barbosa later identified both suspects in photo lineups, according to local reporting. Gomez was arrested within days of the attack and later posted an $85,000 bond. Rivas was arrested about a month later. Law&Crime and local outlets reported he remained in the Bexar County Jail on a total bond of $105,000, including $100,000 tied to the assault case and $5,000 on a separate controlled-substance charge. Under Texas law, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon is generally charged as a felony.

The story, as laid out by police, is built less on a single eyewitness than on overlapping accounts. Barbosa described the encounter after surviving the wounds. His girlfriend provided what investigators treated as real-time corroboration from the phone call. Officers pointed to Gomez’s alleged instructions about where Barbosa should go and when he should come outside. They also relied on the claim that the argument changed as soon as all three adults were in the parking lot. No defense account appears in the published reports, and court filings publicly available through local coverage do not include pleas from either defendant. That leaves the prosecution narrative dominant for now, with the next test coming as defense lawyers challenge the affidavits, witness statements and the sequence police say proves planning.

For the moment, the case stands at the charging stage, with two defendants accused in the same attack and a surviving victim whose account anchors the record. The next milestone will come in Bexar County court as hearings and filing dates determine how prosecutors move the case forward.

Author note: Last updated April 16, 2026.