Charging that the treatment of Charles Oakley was “Eric Garner without the chokehold,” Brooklyn Borough president Eric Adams said he will meet Monday with Knicks owner James Dolan and Garden officials over the incident that resulted in the Knicks legend being banned from the arena.
“This is a blemish, not only on the Knicks, Madison Square Garden but sports. Any time you have a player who gave his heart and his soul to the team and the city, to be treated in that fashion, sends a chilling impact. I saw this as Eric Garner without the chokehold,” Adams said, referencing the Staten Island man who died while being placed under arrest in 2014.
A former NYPD captain, Adams, with more than a half dozen other African-American educators, businessmen and attorneys, gathered Sunday in front of the Seventh Avenue entrance to Penn Station, in the shadow of Madison Square Garden. In the chill and rain they denounced Oakley’s treatment, called for the charges against him to be dropped and the ban lifted. Adams said he was in contact with Dolan and his team to set the Monday morning meeting. Oakley will not attend.
Oakley was ejected from MSG and arrested Wednesday. Oakley claimed he was targeted by Dolan’s security personnel. The Garden released statements from at least a dozen witnesses who claim Oakley was abusive from the time he entered the building to when he was forcibly removed.
“We look forward to meeting with Borough President Eric Adams and making him aware of all the facts surrounding the events at Madison Square Garden last week,” Garden spokesman Barry Watkins said in an email.
At the Knicks-Spurs game Sunday, the team welcomed back a horde of former players. Suffice to say, Oakley was not among them.
“I was alarmed as a Knick fan, I was disgusted as a black man and I want to make a clear statement that we are better than this as a city, as a team and as a player,” Adams said. “We are looking forward to sitting down with Mr. Dolan and his executive team [Monday] and find out exactly what took place and … to insure that it doesn’t happen again.”
David Banks, president/CEO of the Eagle Academy Foundation which runs a network of boys schools in the city and Newark, N.J., and a lifelong Knicks fan who can “remember when the Knicks were really a good team,” was “outraged” by the incident.
“Even if I were not a Knick fan, to see the level of disrespect Charles Oakley had to suffer is [why] I’m so completely outraged,” Banks said. “This is not to suggest Charles Oakley in that moment was a choir boy … but my concern and my outrage was the way in which the issue was escalated.”
Dwayne Sampson, representing the Transportation Diversity Council, expressed his concern “about how black men are treated in New York and how Charles Oakley was treated in particular” at MSG.
“To see a man who is considered a hero throughout New York City to be treated this way … is very disparaging, very discouraging,” said Cyriac St. Vil, spokesman for 500 Men Making a Difference.
Adams at the outset stressed the desire to have the charges dropped. He claimed videos of the event did not show any injuries inflicted, although both the police report and the follow-up statements released by the Garden claimed Oakley struck security personnel.
“The Manhattan DA will have to look at the case and decide if the charges should be dropped. The office will first have to interview the complainant, victims,” a former assistant district attorney said about the possibility of the charges being dropped. “They will also have to determine if someone was physically injured. After the cops make arrests, the DA’s offices can either defer charges or decline to prosecute.”
Oakley, in subsequent interviews, maintained Dolan must be informed by his security people when the Knicks legend enters the building. After the incident, Frank Benedetto, the senior vice president for security at MSG, was fired. Oakley also has suggested he was targeted because he is African-American.
Adams referenced three former white players when addressing the incident.
“I do find it hard to believe that if Bill Bradley or [the late] Dave DeBusschere or now the current GM and leader of the Knicks who is a former player [Phil Jackson], if they were sitting in that same seat in that same situation there would have been more of a conversation and not an incarceration,” Adams said. “That’s what we are going to find out [Monday].”