STAMFORD, Conn. – Ben Gordon, a former NBA standout, was arrested on multiple charges after he began behaving erratically at a juice shop in Connecticut, leading employees to call 911, according to police.
The Stamford Police Department said Gordon, 40, was “acting bizarre” and aggressive, saying he brandished a knife inside the Atlantic Street business while making a verbal threat.
On Tuesday at about 10:00 a.m. officers responded and found Gordon inside the juice shop and asked him to step outside. Gordon initially complied, but then began to resist as officers asked him to place his hands against the wall. Officers took him into custody using a “minimal amount of force,” NBC New York reported.
During the arrest, officers found Gordon in possession of a knife in his pants pocket, along with a stun gun and brass knuckles from his backpack. The “bizarre” and aggressive behavior continued when he was taken to the Stamford Police Department. Gordon was subsequently transported to a hospital for a mental health evaluation, authorities confirmed.
Gordon faces weapons and threat-related charges, disorderly conduct, interfering with police and sixth-degree larceny, according to the news outlet.
The former basketball guard, who was drafted third overall by the Chicago Bulls in the 2004 NBA draft, was later released from the hospital and returned to police headquarters. He eventually complied with booking procedures and was released on a $10,000 bond, officials said. He is due back in court later this month.
Gordon has been arrested multiple times in the past several years. In October 2022, he was arrested at LaGuardia Airport in New York after reportedly hitting his 10-year-old son with such force that he had to be hospitalized, police said at the time, Law Officer reported.
In 2017, Gordon was arrested for robbing the manager of a Los Angeles apartment building while armed with a knife, and driving in New York with a fake license. That same year he was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation after becoming abusive to a woman in a store he owns in Mount Vernon, New York, and locking himself in the restroom.
In 2020, Gordon wrote about how he wanted to kill himself in his final NBA season.
“There was a point in time when I thought about killing myself every single day for about six weeks,” he wrote in the essay for The Player’s Tribune. “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.
“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,” the former basketball star wrote.
Gordon played 11 seasons with four different teams in the NBA, earning more than $84 million before his career was finished in 2015.
Although Gordon was born in London, he grew up outside New York City and played basketball collegiately at the University of Connecticut. He was selected in the first round by the Chicago Bulls in the 2004 NBA draft, and later played for the Detroit Pistons, Charlotte Bobcats, and Orlando Magic.
