Raptors’ president Masai Ujiri issued a statement Thursday and said his altercation with officer Alan Strickland last year occurred because he is “black.”
“The video sadly demonstrates how horribly I was treated by a law enforcement officer last year in the midst of my team, the Toronto Raptors, winning its first world championship,” Ujiri wrote, per ESPN.com. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
“It was an exhilarating moment of achievement for our organization, for our players, for our city, for our country, and for me personally, given my long-tenured professional journey in the NBA,” he added.
Raptors president Masai Ujiri releases statement about systemic racism and altercation with security during 2019 NBA Finals pic.twitter.com/yaQKO3BtHo
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) August 20, 2020
Ujiri continued, “Yet, unfortunately, I was reminded in that moment that despite all of my hard work and success, there are some people, including those who are supposed to protect us, who will always and only see me as something that is unworthy of respectful engagement. And there’s only one indisputable reason why that is the case — because I am black.” (RELATED: Trump Criticizes New York’s ‘Black Lives Matter’ Mural As A ‘Symbol Of Hate’)
The Raptors’ president went on to explain that “the only reason why I am getting the justice I deserve in this moment is because of my success. Because I’m the President of a NBA team, I had access to resources that ensured I could demand and fight for my justice.”
“So many of my brothers and sisters haven’t had, don’t have, and won’t have the same access to resources that assured my justice,” he added. “And that’s why Black Lives Matter.”
It comes after videos surfaced this week that appeared to show the NBA president didn’t instigate the altercation with Strickland after last year’s NBA Finals.
Masai Ujiri’s legal team has released body camera footage of his encounter with a security worker at Oracle Arena after the Raptors won the NBA championship. pic.twitter.com/56XWMpZy0P
— Diamond Leung (@diamond83) August 19, 2020
New video footage appears to show Raptors president Masai Ujiri didn’t instigate the altercation he was sued over after Toronto won the NBA title in June 2019 pic.twitter.com/mMsD6PuIto
— CBC Sports (@cbcsports) August 19, 2020
As previously reported, Strickland sued claiming Ujiri assaulted him and as a result he “suffered injury to his body, health, strength, activity and person, all of which have caused and continue to cause Plaintiff great mental, emotional, psychological, physical, and nervous pain and suffering.”
Ujiri’s filed a countersuit, that claimed the officer’s account was “a complete fabrication” and it attempted to portray the him as “the initial aggressor and an inherently violent individual.”