HARTFORD, Conn. — Former UConn men’s basketball star Ben Gordon was arrested Tuesday, just a day after his former college team won the national championship, following a bizarre incident in which he allegedly threatened multiple people with a knife at a juice shop in Stamford.
Gordon, 40, was found with a folding knife, brass knuckles and a stun gun following a disturbance at Juice Kings at 36 Atlantic St. in Stamford, according to Stamford Assistant Chief of Police Richard Conklin.
The Stamford Police Department was called to the business on Tuesday at about 9:50 a.m. on the report of a man there acting bizarre and aggressive and threatening employees with a knife, Conklin said. The suspect, later identified as Gordon, was compliant when police asked him to step outside but quickly stopped cooperating when an officer told him to put his hands on a nearby wall, according to Conklin.
Gordon, the assistant chief said, was taken into custody with minimal force after refusing to comply with police. Officers found a folding knife clipped to his pocket and a backpack containing brass knuckles and a stun gun, Conklin said.
Gordon — who played for the Huskies from 2001-04 before an NBA career that spanned from 2004-15 — was taken to the Stamford Police Department, where Conklin said his bizarre behavior continued. That led to the decision to have him evaluated at an area hospital before he was transferred back to police custody, according to Conklin.
Conklin said Gordon — who turned 40 the day he was arrested — continued acting aggressive and bizarre and refused to cooperate with the booking process. The department’s Behavioral Health Unit then intervened, which calmed the former basketball player down somewhat before his family and friends arrived at the department, calming him down further enough to get him through the booking process, Conklin said.
Gordon posted a $10,000 bond after being charged with three counts of carrying a dangerous weapon, two counts of threatening and a single count of interfering with police, disorderly conduct and sixth-degree larceny.
No injuries were reported in the incident Conklin said could have gone very differently.
“We’re proud of our response and blessed to have a Behavioral Health Unit,” the assistant chief said. “We hope he gets whatever resources he needs.”
Gordon, who is scheduled to appear in Stamford Superior Court on April 18, has had multiple run-ins with law enforcement over the last several months.
According to the Associated Press, the former NBA player was arrested on misdemeanor battery charges in November 2022 after a security guard at a Chicago McDonald’s was punched in the face.
A month earlier, Gordon was arrested on assault charges after allegedly punching his son in the face multiple times at LaGuardia Airport in New York.
