Video of Masai Ujiri’s NBA Finals Altercation Shows Officer as Aggressor

Ujiri's incident occurred after the Raptors won Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals

Video of Masai Ujiri’s NBA Finals Altercation Shows Officer as Aggressor
President Masai Ujiri of the Toronto Raptors looks on during the 2019 Summer League. (Michael Reaves/Getty)
Getty Images

New video of Toronto Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri’s altercation with a San Francisco Bay Area police officer following Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals has emerged as a result of a countersuit the basketball exec has filed against the cop.

Filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Oakland, California, the suit alleges Officer Alan Strickland was the main aggressor in the incident and contends that the video proves it, conclusively. It certainly appears to.

In the video, Strickland appears to grab Ujiri by the suit jacket and shove him as the executive attempts to show his credential to get onto the floor at Oracle Arena to celebrate the Raptors defeating the Golden State Warriors to win Toronto’s first NBA championship. Following an exchange of words, Strickland shoved Ujiri a second time and was shoved back in return.

The suit calls Ujiri’s response a “reasonable and justified” reaction to Strickland’s use of “unnecessary and excessive force.”

“After being shoved and cursed at, Mr. Ujiri did not respond aggressively towards Mr. Strickland,” the suit says. “Instead, he calmly asked Mr. Strickland why he had pushed him, informed Mr. Strickland he was the Raptors’ President, and held up his all-access arena credential to show it to Mr. Strickland. Rather than trying to communicate with Mr. Ujiri, Mr. Strickland chose to dismiss Mr. Ujiri’s claim that he was the Raptors’ President and ignore the all-access credential Mr. Ujiri was trying to show him. Mr. Strickland then forcefully shoved Mr. Ujiri a second time.”

In the suit Strickland filed against Ujiri in February, he claimed he was assaulted and that he “suffered injury to his body, health, strength, activity and person, all of which have caused and continue to cause Plaintiff great mental, emotional, psychological, physical, and nervous pain and suffering.” Strickland has not been back to work in more than a year.

After initially being pressured to charge Ujiri with battery of a peace officer, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office declined to press any charges.

If you watch the video, you can probably see why.

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