A Celtics fan who threw a water bottle at Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving has been arrested on charges of assault and battery with a deadly weapon.
Speaking to USA Today, Boston Police sergeant detective John Boyle the suspect, Cole Buckley from Braintree, Massachusetts, was arrested Sunday.
Buckley will be arraigned Tuesday in Boston Municipal Court. Buckley, 21, has also been banned from the TD Garden arena for life.
Irving, who is Black, said after the incident, “I’ve been in some hostile environments where a lot of things have been said to me, a lot of things have been done to my teammates or I’ve experienced some type of subtle racism that I’m referring to, you know, where it’s just underlying throughout the game.”
“Like I said, I joined this sport because I loved it and inevitably, you know, you’re going to have opposing fans do things that are gonna help their team win. They love being involved,” Irving added. “I don’t want to take away that nature. It’s just when you feel disrespected as a person — man or woman — and someone calls you out or does something like that, it doesn’t make you feel good.”