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NBA players' union investigating Hawks' arrests, Thabo Sefolosha's broken leg
The National Basketball Players Association will launch its own independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Atlanta Hawks forward Thabo Sefolosha suffering a broken right fibula, an injury that will sideline him for the rest of the 2014-15 season, in the course of being arrested alongside teammate Pero Antic following the stabbing of Indiana Pacers forward Chris Copeland outside a New York City nightclub early Wednesday morning.
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A police report claims that New York Police Department officers asked Sefolosha, 30, and Antic, 32, "six times [...] to clear the area [in front of the nightclub 1Oak] to establish a crime scene before they were arrested," and that the players moved a couple of feet away, but did not "clear the area." At that point, according to Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the report states that "Sefolosha then charged officers in an 'aggressive manner.'"
Police officer Johnpaul Giancona wrote: “When I approached the defendant to place him under arrest for the above described conduct, I observed the defendant flail his arms, twist his body, kick his legs, and struggle against me making it difficult for me to place handcuffs on him and complete the arrest. It took four officers to place the defendant in handcuffs.”
In regard to Antic, the report states that as Sefolosha was being arrested by an officer, he “grabbed his left shoulder, making it difficult to assist in the arrest.”
TMZ released a video on Thursday that purportedly shows multiple NYPD officers encircling Sefolosha, with one officer seeming to grab Sefolosha by the back of the neck before the group brings him down to the street:
Officers then appear to handcuff Sefolosha on the ground, lift him back to his feet and walk with him away from Antic, seated on the sidewalk, surrounded by officers. He, too, gets handcuffed and brought to his feet before walking away. As VICE Sports' Dan O'Sullivan notes, the interaction between Sefolosha, Antic and the police seems to happen "at the intersection of West 17th Street and 10th Avenue," more than 100 feet from 1OAK, rather than the "couple of feet" that the police report indicated the players first moved.
Sefolosha and Antic were charged with three misdemeanors, including "including obstructing governmental administration." After being released from custody after arraignment pending a June 16 court date, the players issued a statement saying they planned to contest the charges. Their attorney, Alex Spiro, said they "should not have been arrested" and that he and his clients "fully expect the case to be dismissed."
Sefolosha appeared to be wearing some sort of padding or sleeve on his right ankle as he walked with "a pronounced limp as he was escorted to a police van to be transported for arraignment," according to Vivlamore, leading the Hawks to evaluate his right leg after his release. The prognosis of a fracture, along with ligament damage, came down Thursday, officially ruling the nine-year veteran defensive stopper out for not only the final four games of the regular season, but also the entire 2015 postseason. Sefolosha's absence represents a serious blow for a Hawks team that tops the Eastern Conference with a 59-19 record and has designs on competing for an NBA championship this June.
The police report and the video obtained by TMZ seeming to offer, if not conflicting, then at least not totally harmonious versions of the events. With plenty of unanswered questions remaining surrounding how Sefolosha sustained his injuries, the union representing NBA players has begun to make inquiries as to what exactly transpired out on the sidewalk on Wednesday morning, according to Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com:
"The players' union is concerned about the circumstances of Thabo Sefolosha and Pero Antic's arrest and is doing its own investigation of the situation," NBPA spokeswoman Tara Greco said. "The union was fully engaged in supporting all three players in court and in the precinct this week, and will continue to stay engaged as each situation evolves."
The police are facing new questions about their tactics during the incident, as Sefolosha suffered a season-ending broken fibula, which went untreated overnight and into Wednesday as Sefolosha languished in custody. [...]
Sources close to the situation say the players' association has been very active, as well. Sources say that representatives from the players' association appeared Thursday at the 10th Precinct in Manhattan with several inquiries into the incident. [...]
Privately, sources say, Hawks officials also have begun to raise questions about the specific circumstances that led to Sefolosha being held by police for several hours with a broken fibula.
Back with the team on Friday, Antic spoke with the media for the first time since the arrest, saying that he and Sefolosha were not trying to prevent bystanders from taking pictures of Copeland after the stabbing (“We didn’t have anything to do with what happened with that. We weren’t together [...] Whatever happened, happened way before"). He also reiterated that neither he nor Sefolosha did anything untoward in the incident, according to Vivlamore:
“The only thing I can say is we feel bad for the bad publicity that we brought to the Hawks organization, the Hawks family, not by our fault,” Antic said. “I just want to say I am going to be supportive of Thabo, my teammates and just think about the basketball right now and the good things we can do.” [...]
Antic was asked directly whether he and Sefolosha were wrongly arrested.
“The video speaks for itself,” he said. “It is a legal matter. We have great people who are great doing their job. We are going to let them do their job. We are going to try to do our job and do what we can because we have big goals for this season.
“I will say it’s a pure example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. People know Thabo for so many years of being in the league. Thabo is one of the greatest guys. A few of the reporters here know me. I don’t have anything (in my past) so it is just a pure example, like I said, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Prior to ascending to the NBPA's top position, union executive director Michele Roberts began her career as a public defender in Washington, D.C., before becoming a decorated trial lawyer, and she has been nothing if not active and vocal in supporting her constituency. Here's hoping that brand of advocacy can help shed some light on what transpired in the time before that bystander's camera started rolling, and in the hours between the players' arrest and their Wednesday morning perp walk.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
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