The guy that threw the cup at Artest was throwing punches at him when he came in the stands...and he has a criminal record--and was not supposed to drink as a condition of his probation. But I mean seriously the guy that he ended up beating on may not have been the one to throw the cup but I highly doubt that he is 100% innocent. I have a feeling he had been talking shit the whole game. There was some reason Artest thought it was specifically that guy, at least in my opinion. I'm not sure I'd rule him out as an innocent bystander just yet.

yeah well he is making an assumption that is totally wrong. Just because a FEW people start stuff at Detroit Games (and its not even ALL Detroit games) does not make ALL of Detroit Fans hoodlums...he was wrong for saying that

So what if he was talking shit at the game. You can't sit here and tell me that you don't go to sporting events and talk shit about the other players. Its doesn't even matter if he was talking shit though, Artest could not have possibly heard it. If you watched the fight, the guy that Artest attacked first still had a cup in his hand...so Artest just went for the first person he saw. It doesn't matter if Artest thought he was the guy or not. He did not need to go off like he did and hit a fan. You don't see our players hitting Pacer's fans because they "talk shit". There was no reason for Artest to hit that guy! I never said the guy that threw the cup should sue, I am saying the guy that Artest attacked, who didn't throw the cup, deserves to sue! He didn't deserve to get attacked cause some other ass hole threw a cup!

Watch the tapes. Watch the tapes over and over. You will see that the guy he beat on first had done nothing. The one who threw the beer did it very discreetly and then put his hands in his pockets and looked around, acting innocent. From where Artest was laying, he couldn't see who had done it at all. The police reports state that Artest grabbed the guy, started hitting him saying "Did you throw it? Did you throw it?" There were witnesses. Why is it inconceivable that with a crowd and chaos like that, he would pick the wrong guy to suspect?

Given the guy's record (the one who threw the beer), I suppose he DOES qualify as a hoodlem! Are they going to have to do background checks on season ticket holders to make sure they have no past assaults, prison breaks or DUIs? LOL

Honestly, they are showing this on the news so much that I decided not to watch the news for a few days anymore. Every day, more videos, more "exclusive" interviews with various parties, more videos, new videos, exclusive videos. Enough already! It almost glorifies it.

However, the humiliation factor for the "most wanted" related to the incident is HUGE! Imagine your face plastered all over every newspaper and broadcast asking for people to identify who you are! How would you even face people you work with and stuff? It's mind boggling to think about (not that I feel sorry for them at all).

Bizarre bizarre situation.

And yes, Fieger is one of the attorneys for the civil suit. Big surprise.

Dee

Let NBA melee be a warning to all hecklers

Published November 23, 2004

A thoroughly delightful moment on the otherwise unsettling video of Friday night's NBA brawl at the Palace in Auburn Hills, Mich., goes by so quickly that you have to set the playback to 1/15th speed to savor it.

It comes just after Indiana Pacers forward Ron Artest has rushed crazily into the stands seeking revenge on whichever fan has thrown the cup of liquid that landed on his neck as he lay on his back on the scorer's table--an island of calm in the sea of Detroit Pistons players who are as enraged and belligerent as a flock of hillbilly cuckolds on "The Maury Povich Show."

I won't retell the whole story--the hard foul that touched off the fight on the floor and the subsequent chaos in the arena that has prompted so much amateur sociology these last few days. You know it by now.

Just enjoy with me the transformation of the slightly built fan in the dark golf shirt--several media reports have said his name is Mike Ryan--from punk loudmouth idiot jerk to terrified little wimp.

When we first catch sight of him, he has his right hand high in the air and his index finger is thrusting toward Artest, an internationally recognized taunting gesture. His left hand holds what appears to be a box of popcorn.

Police later say that Ryan didn't throw the beverage; it's still unclear exactly why Artest rushes past at least one other fan to get to him. But at that instant on the tape, he is every moron who has ever cursed out opposing players from the safety and ostensible sanctity of the sidelines.

He's Robin Ficker, the motormouth who sat behind the visitors' bench at Washington Bullets games and mercilessly heckled the other team.

He's Spike Lee, who believed that a courtside seat entitled him to be a participant in New York Knicks games.

He's Craig Bueno, the Oakland A's fan who, after his wife was struck by a folding chair thrown by a Texas Rangers relief pitcher, told reporters that he buys season tickets near the visiting bullpen so he can insult opposing players.

He's every coward, every drunk, every Big Man phony bully who thinks a ticket to a game entitles him to say whatever abusive, contemptuous belittling thing that pops into his head without risking the everyday consequences of such remarks.

In super slow-mo, Ryan's face loses its cocky self-assuredness, his eyes widen and his mouth forms a startled O in an instant as Artest's scrambling approach makes it clear he's about to smash through the imaginary protective barrier behind which obnoxious fans hide.

I imagine the thought balloon over Ryan's head in the millisecond before Artest pushes his face down hard with an open hand and the popcorn goes flying: "Hmm ... it seems he's a real person, not a cartoon character, and I couldn't mock, cuss out or taunt a real person on the street without risking severe consequences, particularly a real person who is so much bigger than I am and--mfffgggg!"

The cost in lost salary alone to Artest for this moment of apparently symbolic revenge in which his target was not seriously hurt: $5.3 million.

The value of it to those who are sick of the increasingly coarse and degrading behavior of spectators: (all together now!) priceless.

For too long, neither the leagues nor the law has taken unruly fan behavior seriously enough. In some cases, teams have actually encouraged it--passing out devices designed to distract free-throw shooters, for instance.

Whether this is a cause or just a symptom of the overall decline in sportsmanship at every level, I don't care.

Either way it's "poisonous," as NBA Commissioner David Stern put it over the weekend, and Friday's melee underscored the need for a major crackdown--zero tolerance for drunkenness, profanity and malicious heckling in the stands.

Every fan needs to have a Mike Ryan moment of realization: No matter how much you paid for your ticket or how much the athletes earn, it's gutless and disgraceful to hide behind a mob, a security guard or the protection of league rules to shout something at an opposing player you wouldn't say to his face in the parking lot.

Ideally, this can happen without any more popcorn being spilled.

The following was written by Eric Zorn, sports columnist for the Chicago Tribune. This is a rare moment when I agree with what he's written. Fans need to give players a certain level of respect when they're in the stadium.

Back in 1930, basketball games were basically played with a cage like fence going around the court to protect players from the fans. Sounds like it's time for a comeback.

Yes, I watched the tapes over and over. I'm just saying that whole group of guys that was sitting there had could have been talking shit earlier that night as well. It's possible that's why he suspected him.

Talking shit or not...he still has a to sue for getting beat up. Artest should have looked a little more closely before he went after anyone. The guy was still holding his drink in his hand, first thing that tells me that he did not have throw the cup.

Don't roll your eyes - you might just be correct!

According to USAToday, the other two times Artest claimed to be pelted with garbage from the stands occured in Cleveland and . . . Detroit.



Some are taking the wrong bent at this (mostly JeN, is that the correct spelling, btw?) - no one said AGDee was a hoodlum, no one even claimed the Phildo was a hoodlum . . . just that these Detroit fans are why Detroit gets a bad rep as a sports town (excepting hockey, which is a different story all together).

Also - I'm sure the first guy will get some money, but realistically it doesn't look like he took too much in the way of injuries. The guy knocked out by the chair has a stronger case, but I'm unsure why he's suing Ron Artest for a chair being thrown - in my industry, we call this "shitsticking" (ie "thow the shit at the money, see what sticks" - large-scale lawsuits almost unilaterally work under this assumption), and it seems somewhat f-ed up.

Realistically, let's assign some blame to the situation that incited this - the ENTIRE situation, not just the rich side of it. Fans were throwing haymakers, too - fans who had no right or responsibility to be engaged.

It's a full-blown fiasco now - it reflects badly on everyone. Even fans of the Pistons, like it or not.

let me slow this down for you and use smaller words....

a reason that the entire stadium wasn't fighting was because they were to far away.

it sure looked like a good amount of people who were in close proximity to the court were acting a fool.

According to some co-workers of mine who were there, MANY had left already (to avoid the well known Palace traffic insanity) and those who hadn't left moved UP and away from the activity if they weren't into acting a fool. In fact, the guy who threw the beer didn't have seats in that section. He moved down after most of the folks in that section had left. Were there a lot of people acting a fool? yes. Was it the majority? no. It was the people who stuck around after things got scary. The Piston's families also sit very close to the area where most of the fighting was occuring and they tried to get out really fast. I don't think anybody is defending those fans who were out of line, but we are defending the 4 million people who live in the metro Detroit area who were appalled by the whole thing and the innocent people who were injured in the chaos. One woman was pushed to the court by crowds who were just trying to get away from the action and she was taken off in an ambulance.

It was a horrific situation, caused by numerous sequential events, none of which could be construed as appropriate behavior. It is hard to not get defensive when people say things like "That guy deserved to have the crap beat out of him" (to paraphrase), because, NOBODY deserves that. People deserve to be criminally charged and held accountable for their actions in court. And they will be. Violence simply isn't the answer.

Dee

Your comment makes no sense at all. Did you NOT see people there scared and moving away? Did you ever see all the tapes at all?

And sorry yeah you gota slow it down for me. Because I don't understand your half ass sentence.

editted cuz I didn't realize ebonics was a "racist" comment since I hear many people speaking the same way here.... all colors.

Thank you for saying what I have been trying to say all along. The reason I am so pissed off is because everyone in this thread is saying Detroit Fans are hoodlums...well just because a few fans got into a fight does not make everyone hoodlums! They are just pissing me off by saying that. And like you said, no one deserves to get beat up, even if they were talking shit the whole game. Like I said before...everyone in this thread can not sit there and tell me that they have not sat a sporting event before and not talked shit about the other team. Hell we are all guilty of doing it. So what you are basically saying is that you deserve to get the shit beat out of you before you talked shit? NO I don't think so!

I agree with what you are saying. I think people are talking crap when they have not even seen the tapes. Either that or they are seeing something other than what other people are seeing.

Some of you all are posting like "hoodlems" (btw- it's hoodlums, with a "u". I'm not too much of a spelling crazy person but this is driving me insane b/c it's being repeated constantly).

As I said earlier, name calling, cursing, and racist comments aren't helping your cause at all. If anything, they're creating a worse image of your city to those of us on GC who have never been there. If you disagree with someone or think they're wrong, that's fine, but do so in a civil manner!

Not to mention that some posters have their letters prominently in their sig while cursing, name calling, and making racist comments.

I was thinking the same thing....

You can defend something without namecalling, profusive cursing, and racist remarks.

This whole thing was a bad PR event for Detroit. But the defense of the city here isn't doing anything to help that. If anything, it's promulgating the image of the city.

it does make sense, it's not my fault you're not intelligent enough to put together any semblance of coherent and cohesive thought. but hey, such is life sometimes. there was no ebonics in my posts, thus further proving your massive ineptitude. i apologize for being on a higher intellectual plane....but like i said, hey....such is life.

anyhow, back to the subject....there are plenty of reasons that many of the fans within the palace weren't acting up. access to the court was one of them. some sort of civility was one of them, but either way....a vast amount of palace patrons were shown showing their ass in the court.

now breathe, focus and get it together.

no one is saying anything about all of the people or a good majority of the people in detroit are piss poor fans. but y'all have idiots in your city who make y'all look bad. such is life, i'm sure if this shit happened in new york, a lot of the same people who are on the defensive would be on the offensive and would be saying the same thing. you people are looking way too much into these comments. it happened in detroit, people are always going to have opinions whether or not they have any validity.

actually, you're just a simple individual who makes idiot comments. like you said, you "ain't neffa scuurrrreedddd!!!"

come on now, this is GC....ignorance and irrelevance fly rampant on this board like beer cups at the palace. watch out, they'll start complaining about how people are being too PC.