Former Chicago Bulls player Ben Gordon is ARRESTED at NYC’s LaGuardia airport for ‘hitting his 10-year-old son so hard the child needed to be rushed to a hospital’: NBA star is set to face charges
- Gordon, 39, was arrested following the incident at LaGuardia airport on Monday night, and is facing possible charges for allegedly hitting his son Elijah
- The 10-year-old boy was taken to hospital after his father hit him, according to media reports
- The British-born, New York-raised sporting star retired from professional sport in 2015, and has been open about his struggles with his mental health
- In 2017 he was stopped in New York for driving with a forged license plate, and weeks later accused of punching the manager of a LA apartment complex
- In 2020 Gordon wrote a detailed account of his struggles, describing his suicidal thoughts, bipolar diagnosis and mania that saw him sectioned
Former Chicago Bulls star Ben Gordon has been arrested at LaGuardia airport after allegedly hitting his 10-year-old son so hard the child required hospitalization.
Gordon, 39, was detained by airport police on Monday night and his son Elijah taken to Long Island Jewish Hospital accompanied by his aunt, New York Daily News reported.
Sources told the paper that the British born, New York-raised athlete was expected to be charged with resisting arrest, among other charges.
It is just the latest run-in with the law for the troubled sporting star, who played with the Chicago Bulls from 2004 to 2009 before joining the Detroit Pistons.
Gordon won the Sixth Man Award in 2005 as a rookie with the Bulls, and played alongside Luol Deng.
Former Chicago Bulls star Ben Gordon has been arrested at LaGuardia airport after allegedly hitting his 10-year-old son so hard the child required hospitalization
Ben Gordon is pictured in March 2018 at a court hearing in Manhattan, charged with driving with a fake license plate
He played with the Charlotte Bobcats for two seasons, and ended his career with the Orlando Magic in 2015.
Gordon’s troubles began shortly after, and he has been open about his struggles with his mental health.
In 2020, he wrote in a powerful essay on The Player’s Tribune: ‘There was a point in time when I thought about killing myself every single day for about six weeks.
‘This was right after my last year in the league, and I was living in a brownstone up in Harlem.
‘I had lost my career, my identity, and my family all pretty much simultaneously. I was manic-depressive. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t sleeping.
‘And when I say I wasn’t sleeping, it was like a whole different level of insomnia. Every night, I’d wake up at the same time, like clockwork. And that’s when the demons would come out.’
Gordon retired in 2015, and has been open about his mental health struggles in the years since
The sporting star is pictured in April 2011, while he was signed with the Detroit Pistons
Gordon in 2017 was arrested multiple times – first for allegedly driving in New York with a forged license, and then allegedly for punching the manager of an LA apartment complex.
Gordon allegedly pulled a knife on the man and took the money he said was his security deposit: he was ordered to undergo therapy by the court as a result.
In late October, he was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation after an incident with a woman in a store he owns in Mount Vernon, New York.
Police summoned by the woman found Gordon locked in the bathroom of the store.
The woman told police that they had gotten into an argument and he had become physical, throwing and destroying things and then locking her in the store.
NBA player Gordon is pictured outside a court in New York City in March 2018 following a case over a forged license plate
The store, Of Our Own, is a center for sports rehabilitation and recovery.
‘It got so bad that they had me committed to a mental hospital, and the problem was that I didn’t even understand why it was happening,’ Gordon wrote in his 2020 essay.
‘It was like in the movies. I’m in some white room, and I got doctors and nurses strapping me down on a bed. They got the scrubs on and the gloves on, and they’re sticking needles in my arms, and cutting my pants off at the waist.
‘It was terrifying.’
He said that the therapy had helped immediately, and advocated for others to seek help.
The Port Authority police department have not commented on Gordon’s arrest.
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