Kevin Johnson, the current Sacramento mayor and former National Basketball Association star with the Phoenix Suns, received a pie in the face at community event on September 21. After the man said something to Johnson, the former Cal and National Basketball Association star struck back, according to Nick Miller of the East Bay Express and formerly of Sacramento News & Review.
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Police confirmed the incident soon afterwards, and Thompson was arrested for felony assault of a public official.
A scuffle ensued between Johnson and Thompson, where witnesses say the mayor punched the man in the face multiple times. He was not charged.
One of the attendees at the event, Sacramento High School’s Farm-To-Fork Seeds of Hope dinner, was UFC fighter Urijah Faber, reports ABC Sacramento.
Thompson had red and blue bruises and a roughly 1-inch line of stitches under his left eye when he spoke to The Associated Press in jail.
She said in an email that “the Mayor was attacked and grabbed him from behind and struck with what we afterwards learned was a pie from an unknown man”. Thompson was treated for a minor injury at a hospital, the Sacramento Police Department said in a statement.
“He is home with his family”.
Faber said he walked up at the tail end of the incident when Johnson was being helped up. “The whole thing is just shocking”.
Police and Johnson’s chief of staff said Thompson was not previously known to the mayor and his staff.
“Appreciate everyone. I’m doing fine”, Johnson, a former National Basketball Association star, said in a Twitter post.
Johnson, an National Basketball Association all-star who spent a decade with the Phoenix Suns, has been Sacramento’s mayor since 2008, but announced previous year that he wouldn’t be seeking re-election.
According to Miller at the East Bay Express, Thompson has a history of engaging with Johnson at Sacramento City Council meetings.
His final two years in office were marked by the re-emergence of a decades-old claim of sexual abuse from a woman who was a teenager at the time, when Johnson played for the Suns. Photo of Sean Thompson (right) via Sacramento Police Department.
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Mr. Johnson has denied the allegations.
