NBA Suspends Four, Calls Player-Fan Brawl ‘Repulsive’

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. —  Four National Basketball Assn. players were suspended indefinitely Saturday after a melee at the Detroit Piston-Indiana Pacer game in which fans and players attacked one another, leaving the image-savvy league reeling from one of the ugliest incidents in its history.

In banishing Indiana’s Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O’Neal and Detroit’s Ben Wallace, NBA Commissioner David Stern called Friday night’s violence “shocking, repulsive and inexcusable.”

It was the latest in a rash of incidents pitting fans against professional athletes in recent years -- clashes that experts say suggest an increasingly dangerous blurring of the line between stage and audience.

“There is some sort of negative interaction between fans and athletes,” said Peter Roby, director of Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society. “It has gotten a lot nastier than just the common booing or commentary on the visiting team. It’s gotten more edgy.”

The length of the suspensions will be determined after the league completes its investigation, probably late today, Stern said in a statement.

Security was being increased at the Palace at Auburn Hills, the suburban arena where the defending NBA champion Pistons play the Charlotte Bobcats tonight.

Auburn Hills police also were investigating the incident, which began on the court with a hard foul by Artest and retaliatory shove by Wallace, then flared out of control when Artest and Jackson charged into the stands after a Piston fan threw a drink at Artest.

Two fans who came onto the court as the fracas continued were punched by O’Neal and Artest, a volatile player who has been suspended previously, one time for destroying expensive television equipment at Madison Square Garden in New York.

“This demonstrates why our players must not enter the stands whatever the provocation or poisonous behavior of people attending the games,” Stern said, calling the incident “a humiliation for everyone associated with the NBA.”

The NBA is not the only league coping with a tense relationship between athletes and fans.

In September, two Major League Baseball players were suspended for the remainder of the regular season after throwing objects into the stands.

Texas Ranger relief pitcher Frank Francisco was charged with aggravated battery, later reduced to a misdemeanor, after he threw a folding chair at fans near the bullpen in Oakland, breaking a woman’s nose.

Dodger outfielder Milton Bradley slammed a plastic bottle into the front rows at Dodger Stadium after the bottle was thrown at him on the field.

In another notable altercation four years ago, 20 Dodgers were suspended a total of 89 games -- a penalty reduced on appeal -- after a blowup that began when a fan at Chicago’s Wrigley Field struck a Dodger catcher and took his hat.

Roby equated such reactions with “vigilantism.”

“You can’t take it on yourself as a player to dole out your own justice because it will be anarchy,” he said.

“It’s not any different than the laws in society. We can’t have vigilantism and people taking matters into their own hands because it would get totally out of control.”

At the root of the problem, Roby suggested, might be the “widening chasm” between the groups in terms of economics. The everyday fan might begrudge the multimillionaire center who can’t sink 50% of his free throws.

“Whereas athletes once might have been a part of the community the fans were part of, you don’t see that anymore because the economics are so different,” Roby said. “I think that’s led to some resentment and a lack of being able to relate to the athletes as people.”

It is an era when it can be dangerous to be either a fan or a player.

Athletes and coaches have reason to feel vulnerable.

In a bizarre incident, a father and son attacked Kansas City Royal first-base coach Tom Gamboa on the field in 2002. Gamboa was not seriously injured, and his attackers received a probation sentence.

In the most notorious case of fan violence against an athlete, an obsessed fan stabbed tennis player Monica Seles during a 1993 tournament in Germany. She did not play again for more than two years.

Nevertheless, fans are still customers.

The NBA announced it will review its security policies “so that fans can continue to attend our games unthreatened.”

In Auburn Hills, about 30 miles north of Detroit, fans are a huge economic resource for the community, and economists estimated that they have spent $4.7 million at restaurants in the area during the Pistons’ playoff runs in each of the last two seasons.

At the Hoops sports bar here, employees said that patrons remained in the parking lot until 5 a.m. Saturday -- three hours after closing time -- to talk about the drama that unfolded Friday.

“If [Artest] hadn’t jumped into the crowd, none of this would have happened,” Brian Taylor, 35, of Auburn Hills, said Saturday night.

“There are lines you don’t cross. If you’re a basketball player, you just don’t go into the stands.”

His brother Harold, 38, added: “But the same goes for the fans.... You pay for a ticket to observe the sport. Throwing beer and chairs aren’t part of the ticket price.”

Around the country, the Pacer-Piston brawl was replayed so often, Clemson football Coach Tommy Bowden blamed it for a 10-minute altercation between Clemson and South Carolina players Saturday.

“For 24 hours they’ve watched that basketball fiasco on TV. That’s all they’ve watched,” Bowden said. “On every major news [broadcast] that thing was covered, and they sat there and watched it and watched it and watched it.”

Friday night’s NBA violence is leading to scrutiny of arena security, the role of alcohol in spectator behavior and the officials’ control of the game.

A spokesman for the referees union reacted sharply to the idea that referees held any responsibility.

“Our guys are trained to referee basketball, not trained to referee boxing matches,” said Lamell McMorris, a spokesman for the National Basketball Referees Assn. “There’s no way a fan should be able to run on the floor or be able to toss something at players near the tunnel.”

Tom Wilson, president and chief executive of Palace Sports & Entertainment, said the arena will revert to heavier security measures that are usually in place only for playoff games and probably place covers over the narrow areas leading to the locker rooms.

Fans showered players with food, trash and liquid there Friday night.

“We’ll add additional police and additional security,” Wilson said. “We’ll do it for [today’s game] and do it for the foreseeable future.”

Despite the behavior of the fans, Wilson held Artest responsible for the incident.

“When a player leaves the court and goes into the stands, you cross the line,” Wilson told reporters. “We’re paid a lot of money not to do that because nothing good can happen when you leave the court.”

Wallace, who did not enter the stands, downplayed any suggestion that his shoving Artest triggered the fracas.

“I didn’t start it,” he said. “I just played the game.”

The Auburn Hills police are continuing their investigation, and local and network television outlets handed over copies of their tapes of the brawl.

“We are reviewing everything. It will be days before we are through,” Auburn Hills Deputy Chief of Police Jim Mynsberge said.

The Oakland County prosecutor’s office said it would wait for police to finish their investigation before making a decision about whether to pursue criminal charges against players or fans, perhaps picking up the matter in early December.

“This is going to take a while,” James Halushka, an official with the prosecutor’s office, told reporters.

John Wolfe, a Seattle criminal defense attorney who has represented NBA players and other pro athletes, said the law generally allows players to protect themselves from fans who rush onto the court.

“If the security guards aren’t defending him, he’s entitled to use reasonable force to defend himself,” Wolfe said.

The issue becomes more complex when athletes venture into the stands intent on retaliation.

“You’re not going to have the right, as Artest was observed, rushing up into the stands and decking someone because you had water thrown on you,” Wolfe said, adding that he expected several players to face criminal charges.

“This bordered on a riot,” he said. “I think the league is going to have to adopt a mandatory rule that if you go into the stands for any reason, there are serious consequences. There also have to be serious consequences for fans that come onto the floor. Otherwise, these arenas are going to turn into gladiator-type contests between spectators and participants.

“Isn’t that what we witnessed [Friday] night?”

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Huffstutter reported from Auburn Hills, and Norwood and Bolch from Los Angeles.