Ex-NBA player Ben Gordon violated order of protection when arrested for punching son, 10, at LaGuardia Airport: sources
Former Chicago Bulls player Ben Gordon violated an order of protection already in place when he was arrested on charges of punching his 10-year-old son in the face at LaGuardia Airport, the Daily News has learned.
Gordon, 39, was charged with violating his son’s order of protection as well as assault and resisting arrest for the ugly Monday night clash at LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B, law enforcement sources said.
Gordon was arraigned Tuesday night, with bail set at $20,000.
The 6-foot-3 former shooting guard and his son were at gate 19 and about to hop on an American Airlines flight to Chicago when he allegedly punched his child with a closed fist “multiple times” in front of a crowd of people around 7:45 p.m. Monday.
At least six shocked witnesses called 911 to report the assault, sources said.
An American Airlines worker told authorities that Gordon yelled at the boy after he dropped a book, then punched him in the face multiple times.
When a Port Authority police officer intervened, he asked Gordon if he and the boy were together.
“Yeah,” Gordon said, according to a criminal complaint. “He’s my son.”
Gordon, dressed in a pink jogging suit, locked his arms and refused to be handcuffed. Two Port Authority Police Officers suffered minor injuries taking the NBA player into custody.
After the incident, the child, escorted by an aunt who was also at the gate, was transported to Long Island Jewish Hospital to be treated.
When cops tried to place Gordon in handcuffs, the former basketball player “flailed his arms and twisted his body.”
“I am not going with you guys,” he said, according to the complaint.
Moments later, he refused to get into a patrol car and pushed up against an officer, “causing substantial pain” to the officer’s arm and wrist.
According to the complaint, Gordon violated an order of protection that restricted him from bringing the boy outside of Illinois. The order also prohibited Gordon from “committing physical abuse” on the child.
The incident wasn’t the first run-in with the law for Gordon, who was raised in Mount Vernon, N.Y., but currently lives in Chicago.
In November 2017, police in Harlem stopped him for driving with fake Florida license plates on his Mercedes G-Class SUV.
A Manhattan judge ordered him to complete 10 days of community service for the case to be dismissed after six months.
It was the third time that year he had a brush with law enforcement. A judge ordered him to undergo psychiatric treatment after a woman called police when he locked the two of them inside his Mount Vernon business.
Gordon was born in England and grew up in Mount Vernon. He went to Mount Vernon High School before starring at the University of Connecticut, where he won a national championship in 2004.
Gordon came clean about his bouts of depression in an essay for the Players’ Tribune, in which he wrote, “There was a point in time when I thought about killing myself every single day for about six weeks.
“I would be up on the roof of my apartment building at 4 o’clock in the morning, just pacing to the edge of the ledge, looking over — pacing back and forth, back and forth — just thinking, I’m really about to do it,” he recalled. “I’m about to escape from all this s—t.”
Gordon, who played 11 years in the league, said in the article that he had trouble coming to grips with his playing career being over.
“I had lost my career, my identity and my family all pretty much simultaneously,” Gordon said. “I was manic-depressive. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t sleeping.”
Gordon played with the Bulls, Detroit Pistons, Charlotte Bobcats and Orlando Magic.
With Emma Seiwell
