Video shows cop shoved Raptors’ Ujiri first at NBA Finals
Alan Strickland, the police officer who claims that Raptors president Masai Ujiri gave him a concussion after Game 6 of last year's NBA Finals, shoved Ujiri first. That's evident in new video that's part of Ujiri's countersuit against Strickland, which was filed Tuesday.
Strickland is suing Ujiri over supposed injuries he suffered in the incident which took place after the Raptors clinched their first NBA title at Oakland's Oracle Arena and
Ujiri was trying to get to the court to join the celebration.
In the video released Tuesday, Ujiri begins to take his credential out, and Strickland shoves him. Ujiri says “What are you pushing me for? I'm the president of the Raptors,” and Strickland shoves him again.
This contradicts the Alameda County Sheriff's Office's account of what happened when they tried to charge Ujiri with a crime.
“He had his credential on his body the whole time, which shows he could've produced it and we could've avoided this,” a spokesman said last summer.
The police somewhat backed off this claim last summer, later saying that Ujiri took a credential out in “a very threatening kind of way.”
As the video demonstrates, the interaction between Ujiri and Strickland starts with Ujiri taking his credential out, in a way that seems normal enough.
Strickland's lawsuit against Ujiri, filed in February, claims that the Raptors president “hit him in the face and chest with both fists,” and that the officer suffered permanent neurological damage from the incident. Strickland has not returned to work since filing a workers' comp claim over the incident; he made over $300,000 in 2018, according to the public database Transparent California.
“He tried to push past our deputy, and our deputy pushed him back, and there was another push that kind of moved up and struck our deputy in the face,” is what the Sheriff's Office stated at the time. Conveniently, they've always claimed that the officer's body camera switched off as soon as Ujiri actually made contact with Strickland. Witnesses interviewed by local and Canadian media say that Ujiri did not hit Strickland in the face.