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In an exclusive interview with Hannah Storm on Sportscenter Friday morning, Thabo Sefolosha brought viewers through the night the NYPD violently tackled him to the concrete while placing him under arrest. The way the NYPD — as in, multiple officers — brought him down, ended up breaking Sefolosha’s leg, causing him to miss the rest of the season.
The rationale for the arrest wasn’t clear, either. Sefolosha, as he revealed to Storm in their one-on-one above, was just trying to hand some money to a homeless person who had approached him earlier in the night. That’s when he was allegedly grabbed by a group of officers, with one kicking him in the leg to get him to the ground. Here’s grainy footage TMZ published of the incident:
Sefolosha also detailed what happened that night in this GQ exclusive published on Thursday. This portion of Sefolosha’s story paints an ugly scene, one where the police acted as the aggressors and Sefolosha was unfairly arrested in a disturbingly violent manner.
About 4:15 a.m., they turned the lights on at the club and told us it’s time to go. Something happened, we’re not exactly sure what. The police are outside closing the place down—directing people, telling them to move.
An officer came over to me and said, “Get the hell out!” I said, “Did I do something wrong? You can talk to me in a nicer way.” I didn’t quite understand why he had to come at us so hard when there were so many other people around. We moved, but he kept telling us to get the hell out. I told him we were listening to him: “You are the police, but you don’t have to act like you’re the toughest guy on earth.” He said, “With or without a badge, I can fuck you up.” Like, whatever. We’re not about to find out. I’m the last guy who gets physical with anybody, especially the police. At the same time, I felt singled out for no reason. He was much shorter than me. [Sefolosha is 6-foot-7.] I said, “You’re a midget, and you’re mad.” I voiced my opinion, but I kept moving.
By then I was in the street, around many other people. I asked him where he wanted me to go. He said, “Keep moving until I tell you to stop.” I joined the rest of the people, next to a pizza place, and that’s when five or six or seven other officers surrounded us. It felt like I had done something wrong. Probably they heard what I said and decided, “We’re going to make sure this guy knows that we’re the police and that basically we rule.” They told me I had to leave the scene. They were almost provoking me, challenging me. I didn’t want to react to them.
I was just getting into a livery cab — one of the cops opened the door and said, “Get out of here” — when a homeless man asked me for money. I took out 20 bucks. When I made a few steps toward the guy, an officer said, “You’re going to jail.” Pero tapped the officer on the shoulder and said, “Relax, he didn’t do anything.” Another officer pushed him in the chest and he fell. That’s what the first YouTube video showed—him on the floor.
More officers started grabbing me. I was trying to put the money back in my pocket. Usually I don’t carry that much, but I had six or seven hundred dollars in my hand. One officer pulled me from my right arm, another grabbed me on my left, and another grabbed me on the back of my neck. I’m in, like, an on-a-cross type of position. I couldn’t even move. It was just chaos. I had never been arrested before. I understood a little bit late that they were trying to put me on the ground, but if somebody grabs your arms and pulls you on your neck, you fall face first.
Somebody kicked my leg, more than once, from the back to force me to the ground. I knew something had happened as soon as they did it; I’m an athlete, so I know how my body should feel. They were stepping on my foot, too, I guess to try to keep me there. I didn’t feel like there was anything I could do to calm it down. I tried to show them I was cooperating. I tried.
Sefolosha’s teammate who had been with him at the time of the arrest, Pero Antic, was eventually cleared of all charges, but for Sefolosha they only offered “an adjournment in contemplation of a dismissal (ACD), asking him to perform a day of community service and agreeing to dismiss and seal the file in six months as long as he avoided further trouble.”
Thabo took a huge risk by declining the offer in favor of a complete dismissal of charges, or a possible trial.
The consequences of a trial were an enormous gamble on Thabo’s part. He might have faced up to two years of jail time if he had been found guilty. In GQ, here’s how Sefolosha said he arrived at the decision to contest the arrest in court, despite the risks and the stress it caused him and his family.
In September I went to New York, and they offered me this deal: one day of community service, with the charges to be dismissed after six months. My lawyer said that it was a very, very gutsy move not to take the deal. I don’t think I realized quite fully how much of a risk it was. My lawyer had told me, “You’re risking up to two years in jail for all this.” But to accept the deal felt like admitting guilt.
The charges against Pero were dismissed. I was still hoping that during that month between Sept. 9 and Oct. 5, they were going to drop the charges against me, too. I never had more than six hours’ sleep the whole month. I would wake up at 4:30 in the morning, and the first thing that would pop in my mind was, ‘This is really going on.’ I lost 15 pounds that month from the stress.
My mom was very scared for me. She said, “You’re going against a big system. Don’t stick your neck out too far.” My wife and dad were outraged and in disbelief. He’s from South Africa; he was in a band that was really active in denouncing the old apartheid movement. To think of this happening to his son in the streets of New York City in 2015 — and I don’t really want to make it as a racial thing. I want to let people make up their own minds.
That’s how firmly Sefolosha believed in his innocence. He wanted to be completely exonerated, even if it meant the possibility of serious jail time.
Fortunately, he was cleared of all charges by a jury on Oct. 9.
We strongly urged Sefolosha to sue the NYPD for the false arrest and the Player’s Association director, Michele Roberts, promised the NBPA would aid him if he did.
A little over a week ago, that’s exactly what Sefolosha did, suing the NYPD for $50 million.
Regardless of your feelings on tort law or how much NBA players make, any decent human being can sympathize with Sefolosha’s plight. And all African-Americans can empathize with Sefolosha’s moment of pain, confusion and anger while being manhandled by multiple officers, who only saw a large black man, and didn’t stop to ponder why they were arresting him and why they were doing so in such a physical manner.
James Blake knows how Sefolosha feels, too.
This has to stop, and we’re glad Sefolosha is suing and making the media rounds. The more we talk about this, the more we shame those officers involved, the greater chance we have of preventing incidents like this from ever happening again.
“It’s fair to say that [the] officers who did this to me, couldn’t — a year from now — do this to someone else,” Sefolosha says toward the end of his chat with Storm.
“Is that right? Is that OK? They were supposed to be doing their job. Is that part of their job? To do something like this to an innocent man and then to take him to trial and have him risk a year in jail? Is that how it’s supposed to go? Then I’m just one amongst many that’s here saying that something’s not right and hopefully we can come together with some changes and some solutions.”
We’re not sure anyone else would have been brave enough to step up and challenge the police if this had happened to them. Thankfully, Sefolosha did, and there’s a good chance his courage saved it from happening to someone else.