A California police agency is to pursue a misdemeanor battery charge against Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri after the executive was accused of shoving and hitting a sheriff’s deputy in the face and shouting obscenities as he tried to join his team on the court to celebrate their championship.
After the game on Thursday in Oakland, California, against the Golden State Warriors, Ujiri tried to walk past the deputy who was checking court-access credentials, Alameda County sheriff’s spokesman Sargent Ray Kelly said.
When the deputy stopped him, Ujiri shoved him back several feet, Kelly said.
Photo: AP
“That’s when our deputy goes hands-on and moves Mr Ujiri back from the court. Mr Ujiri made a second, more significant shove and during that shove his arm struck our deputy in the side of the head,” Kelly said.
Ujiri was also accused of shouting obscenities at the deputy.
Several bystanders intervened and Ujiri got onto the court without displaying any credentials, Kelly said.
The deputy complained of pain in his jaw and was taken to a hospital for evaluation.
“We had the opportunity to make an arrest and we chose not to,” Kelly said. “We decided it would be in everyone’s best interest to slow things down and do an investigation.”
Deputies took witness statements and were reviewing footage from body cameras worn by the deputy along with footage from the arena surveillance system and cellphones, Kelly said.
Warriors fan Greg Wiener said that he was standing next to the deputy when the encounter occurred and did not see Ujiri strike him in the face.
“The thing about the cops saying the policeman asked for his credentials, that didn’t happen. There was no conversation at all,” Wiener said. “This part about striking him in the face, yeah that didn’t happen.”
The encounter began when the deputy put his hand on Ujiri’s chest and pushed him, Wiener said.
Ujiri shoved him back before bystanders intervened, he said, adding that he has not been interviewed by authorities.
“This looks like somebody trying to embellish what happened to protect what they did, what the policeman did,” he said.
The Raptors said that they are also looking into the altercation and cooperating with authorities.
“We look forward to resolving the situation,” the team said.
NBA spokesman Mike Bass said that the league was also cooperating with authorities.
ESPN reported that Ujiri had watched the end of the game on television with other team officials outside the Raptors’ locker room. He then went down a tunnel to join the on-court celebration.
Kelly said that deputies had instructions to strictly enforce the NBA’s credential policy, adding that his office would recommend a charge of misdemeanor battery against an officer, even though he understood that Ujiri had a tremendous amount of emotion while trying to meet his team on the court.
The results of the investigation would likely be forwarded next week to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.
Toronto Mayor John Tory came to Ujiri’s defense.
“Anybody who knows anything about him would say that some notion that he would be shoving people around in Oakland or elsewhere in the world is not credible,” Tory said.
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