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Cosmic
Posts: 26570
Alba Posts: 27
Joined: 3/17/2006
Member: #1115
USA
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SECURITY THUGS WENT SIC-O ON ME
By MARC BERMAN
January 23, 2008 -- IF the Knick defense played with the same brute force as Garden security, the franchise wouldn't be the shame of the city.
The Knicks New York Knicks and Celtics played a chippy one on Martin Luther King Day on Monday, but it was chippier behind the scenes with Garden security, a fan named Ozzie Jones and myself - The Post's Knick beat writer of nine years.
As I and two other Knick writers, David Waldstein and Ken Berger, were leaving the Garden rotunda after interviewing Giants Plaxico Burress Plaxico Burress and R.W. McQuarters R.W. McQuarters , we noticed a fan being jostled by security and led out of the building early in the third quarter.
Because of the incident last month in which a fan named Jason Silverstein was ejected for holding up a "Fire Isiah" sign, we were naturally curious what had happened now. I had overheard the fan tell security his crime was yelling for Jared Jeffries to be taken out of the game.
As we followed the alleged heckler being escorted out, about four Garden security officers tried intercepting our path.
I got pushed around pretty good by a couple of the green blazers while in chase of the heckler, as security became more physical than anything that happened between Quentin Richardson and Paul Pierce.
Suddenly, a security officer, in the heat of the moment, yanked my press credential right off my neck as I walked.
The green blazers screamed for us to back off, saying we were not allowed to be in the rotunda, which is false. When we realized it wasn't worth getting further manhandled, we stopped. Waldstein shouted at the fan for his phone number. The fan shouted it over the din.
Moments later, we were reprimanded by the security chief and he took our names - as if we about to be reported to the principal or Jim Dolan. The security chief informed us Jones was ejected for hurling profanities and couldn't understand why we had the audacity to want to speak with him.
I spoke yesterday to Jones, a 28-year-old Brooklyn studio musical engineer who went to school with Stephon Marbury at Lincoln, two grades behind. Jones was more upset about being manhandled than being tossed. He had sneaked down at halftime from the 300 level to the lower bowl to shout a message to Isiah Thomas on his substitution patterns.
"They said they were doing it because I said, 'ass,' Jones said.
"The only reason I got upset is they kept pushing me and I turned around to them and said, 'You can talk to people sometimes. I'm walking, you don't have to push me and put your hands on me.' And they kept pushing me.
"They said I used the word 'ass' and there were little kids around."
As security pushed him down the aisle, Jones continued to heckle Thomas.
"But I didn't cuss after that," Jones said.
I went up to the press room after the incident to collect myself. A Knick executive came up to make sure I was OK, but the club believes the guards were within their rights. In their opinion, we were hindering their ability to eject a fan.
Nothing surprises me anymore. Less than two years ago, security at the Knicks' Westchester practice facility called Greenburg police on us as we waited for Larry Brown at the front gate.
There's been no apology from the Knicks for the rough stuff - much like there's been no apology for this season of catastrophe.
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1/23/2008 10:28 AM
