Masai Ujiri, president of basketball operations for the Toronto Raptors, filed a lawsuit against the San Francisco Bay Area police officer with whom he had an altercation while trying to reach the track after the Raptors won Game 6 of the NBA finals of 2019.
The lawsuit, which includes new video footage showing Officer Alan Strickland was the assailant, was filed in the United States District Court in Oakland, California on Tuesday.
In the video, Strickland can be seen grabbing Ujiri by the jacket and pushing him before telling him to “back off”. Ujiri was attempting to show his credentials to reach the Oracle Arena floor to celebrate the franchise’s first championship with the Raptors defeating the Golden State Warriors.
After the two exchanged a few words, Ujiri again showed his credentials. Strickland pushed Ujiri a second time, prompting Ujiri to fight back and push him back. Once the two men separated, Ujiri was finally able to enter the field to celebrate with his team.
“After being pushed and insulted, Mr. Ujiri did not respond aggressively to Mr. Strickland,” the lawsuit says, for ESPN. “Instead, he calmly asked Mr. Strickland why he pushed him, informed Mr. Strickland that he was the president of the Raptors, and showed his arena access credentials to show Mr. Strickland. Rather than trying to communicate with Mr. Ujiri, Mr. Strickland chose to dismiss Mr. Ujiri’s claim that he is the president of the Raptors and ignore the full login credentials that Mr. Ujiri was trying to show him. Mr. Strickland then pushed Mr. Ujiri hard a second time.
“Only after he was unjustifiably told to ‘pull back the f-up’ and pushed twice, Mr. Ujiri showed a response and returned a thrust to Mr. Strickland’s chest. Mr. Ujiri’s defensive response was a reasonable and justified reaction to Mr. Strickland’s use of excessive and unnecessary force. “
Strickland filed a lawsuit in February claiming that Ujiri had attacked him in the moments following the Toronto victory. As a result of the incident, Strickland said he had “suffered injuries to the body, health, strength, activity and person, which caused and continues to cause the plaintiff great mental, emotional, psychological, physical pain and suffering. and nervous. “
Initially, Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern claimed that Ujiri hit Strickland’s jaw and shoulder and then demanded that Ujiri be charged with a police officer’s battery. However, after a months-long investigation and a meeting between the office, Ujiri and his lawyers in October, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office refused to file a complaint.
Ujiri includes in his counter-suit that Strickland faked their encounter and attempted to portray Ujiri as “the initial aggressor and an inherently violent individual”. The lawsuit goes so far as to call Strickland’s tale “a complete fabrication” which has been contradicted by the video footage.
.
