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.
Japan’s Shohei Ohtani is the record-breaking baseball “superhuman” following in the footsteps of the legendary Babe Ruth who has also earned comparisons to US sporting greats Michael Jordan and Tom Brady. Not since Ruth a century ago has there been a baseball player capable of both pitching and hitting at the top level. The 30-year-old’s performances with the Los Angeles Dodgers have consolidated his position as a baseball legend in the making, and a national icon in his native Japan. He continues to find new ways to amaze, this year becoming the first player to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases
Zhang Shuai yesterday said that she nearly quit after losing 24 matches in a row — now the world No. 595 is into the quarter-finals of her home China Open. The 35-year-old is to face Spain’s Paula Badosa as the lowest-ranked player to reach this stage in the history of the tournament after Badosa reeled off 11 of the last 12 games in a 6-4, 6-0 victory over US Open finalist Jessica Pegula. Zhang went into Beijing on a barren run lasting more than 600 days and her string of singles defeats was the second-longest on the WTA Tour Open era, which
Francesco Bagnaia yesterday profited from a mistake by rookie Pedro Acosta to win the Japan MotoGP sprint and close the gap on overall championship leader, Jorge Martin. Spaniard Acosta crashed with four laps to go while leading the field at Motegi, allowing defending world champion Bagnaia to take first ahead of Enea Bastianini and Marc Marquez. Spain’s Martin finished fourth and saw his overall lead over Italian Bagnaia in the championship standings cut to 15 points. “I am very happy because with these conditions, it’s not very easy to win and gain points,” Bagnaia said after a sprint race that took place under
Naomi Osaka is braced for a “battle” after yesterday setting up a clash with Coco Gauff in the round-of-16 of the China Open, while top seed Aryna Sabalenka also marched on. Osaka defeated 60th-ranked American Katie Volynets 6-3, 6-2 and next faces Gauff in a showdown of former US Open champions in Beijing. World No. 2 Sabalenka swatted aside Ashlyn Krueger 6-2, 6-2 for her 14th consecutive victory and plays another American in 24th-ranked Madison Keys. Looking ahead to the Gauff meeting, four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka said: “She’s very athletic, obviously.” “For me, my strongest traits are being aggressive and also my serve,
RSS