Umpire Palermo Vows to Return to Field : Comebacks: He makes first public statement after being shot, partially paralyzed while helping rescue two women from robbers.

American League umpire Steve Palermo, who was shot in the back last month while chasing four robbery suspects, said Tuesday he is neither angry at his assailants nor sorry he got in their way.

“I think my wife’s got the anger. I don’t have the anger,” Palermo said at a news conference at the Dallas Rehabilitation Institute in his first public remarks since the shooting July 7.

“Those guys were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Palermo insisted, his voice cracking. “We weren’t. They were.”

Weeping, Palermo took a moment to collect himself, then said: “I’m going to walk again. Long before their punishment may be up. So who got the worst part of the deal?”

Palermo, 41, was able only to move two toes on his right foot when he entered the rehabilitation institute July 15 but now is walking slowly with braces and forearm crutches.

Dr. John Milani, director of the institute’s spinal cord unit, said the prognosis is good for Palermo’s continued recovery but added it is impossible to tell to what extent Palermo will improve or if he will be able to return to work.

But Palermo didn’t mince words.

“I will walk again,” he said. “And I will umpire again. You can make book on it.”

Milani said that Palermo has paraparesis, a condition in which the spinal cord is injured to a point that causes difficulty in the use of the lower extremities.

Palermo worked as the third base umpire at a game July 6 in Arlington between the Angels and Rangers. He was eating dinner at Campisi’s Egyptian Restaurant in Dallas when four people tried to rob two waitresses outside the building.

Palermo, an American League umpire since 1977, ran outside about 1:30 a.m., along with former Southern Methodist defensive tackle Terence Mann and restaurant owner Corky Campisi, after a bartender saw the attempted robbery.

“He just said, ‘Two of the girls are getting beat up out there,’ ” Palermo said. “ ‘They’re getting robbed.’ And we just sprung out of there.”

Palermo and Mann chased the would-be robbers and caught one. The three others fled by car, then returned and one of them shot Palermo and Mann, police said.

Mann, who was shot in the chin, right arm and stomach, was hospitalized, then released after several days.

The four suspects, including a juvenile, were captured, and the alleged triggerman was charged with two counts of attempted capital murder. Their trials are pending.

Palermo said he has had no second thoughts about his actions.

He also said the first thing he plans to do when he returns to his home in Kansas City is to “walk 18 holes at Wolf Creek.”

“And I’ll let him,” his wife, Debbie, said.