NBPA to Probe Police Actions in Thabo Sefolosha Arrest

Photo Credit: FoxSports.com

In a story that continuously gets more and more interesting, it seems like it won’t go away anytime soon. What put a dark cloud on the NBA Wednesday April 8^th was the stabbing of Indiana Pacers forward Chris Copeland; an arrest of Atalanta Hawks players Pero Antic and Thabo Sefolosha followed.

Copeland and his girlfriend Katrine Saltara was stabbed by bystander Shevoy Bleary-Murdock who was walking by the 1Oak club in New York, where it seems that him and Copeland may have got into it in some type of altercation (there have been conflicting reports of what caused him the incident). Copeland was sent to the hospital and underwent elbow surgery and is recovering fine.

As for the Atlanta Hawks situation, the two players were arrested and charged with obstruction, resisting arrest, and interfering in the investigation.  There is no specific or reported reason on what the players did, it could possibly be that they were in the area or just showing concern to a fellow NBA athlete and it didn’t take well with the investigating police.

One of the arrested players, Thabo Sefolosha, was charged with resisting arrest and reportedly, “charged at the officers” which led to the police subduing him aggressively. Sefolosha suffered a broken ankle, or medically titled “broken fibula”, and was untreated the whole night that he spent in the hands of the New York police. A video was released Thursday night by TMZ where it shows Sefolosha be handled by at least 5 police officers. Sefolosha has now hired criminal defense attorney Alex Spiro.

After witnessing the video the NBPA (NBA Basketball Players Association) is now probing the action of the police and launched their own investigation. Head NBPA representative Michele Roberts was a public defender prior to her position now and it seems that this is just the beginning of this situation, lawsuits maybe coming. “The players’ union is concerned about the circumstances of Thabo Sefolosha and Pero Antic’s arrest and is doing its own investigation of the situation,” NBPA spokeswoman Tara Greco explained. “The union was fully engaged in supporting all three players in court and in the precinct this week, and will continue to stay engaged as each situation evolves.”

Hawks center Pero Antic had words of his own as well. “There’s a video out that speaks for itself. The only thing I can say is that we feel bad for the bad publicity that we brought to the Hawks organization… Antic later said the incident was “a pure example of being at the wrong place at the wrong time…. People have known Thabo for so many years in the league…Thabo is one of the greatest guys.”