Toronto Raptors’ Ujiri Vows to Fight for Wrongly Accused Persons
Toronto Raptors President, Masai Ujiri, has vowed to fight for the wrongly accused in the society after a law enforcement officer robbed him of his championship moment following the 2019 NBA Finals.
During a Good Morning America interview with Robin Roberts on Wednesday morning, Ujiri spoke about that night’s events from his perspective.
The Nigerian NBA executive was sued after a chance encounter with Alameda County Sheriff Deputy Alan Strickland turned physical.
The officer had refused to let the ex-Nigeria international basketball player join his team just after they defeated the Golden State Warriors in California to end the series triumphantly.
Last week, Ujiri released a powerful statement and video in which he reflected on his own experience.
In the Wednesday interview he said, “I say it as humbly as I can: the privilege of the job I have is to fight for this. They are wrongly accused, there are no body cams, nobody sees what happens, and they are incarcerated or they are accused or they are charged. We have to fight for them.”
The Nigerian NBA executive was sued by Strickland even though video evidence from Strickland’s body cam later showed that the officer shoved Ujiri twice as he was trying to step onto the court, before Raptors guard Kyle Lowry pulled him onto the court to celebrate. The Raptors president counter sued Strickland for lying.
Strickland and Ujiri both dropped their lawsuits against each other earlier this month.
“As much as we say, ‘Yeah, this happened to me,’ there’s worse that’s happened to other people, right? I lost a moment. People have lost their lives,” Ujiri added.
Donovan Dooley of Deadspin. com would add: “Ujiri has a firm understanding of what it means to be a black man with privilege in this country.