A man sporting a “Beavis and Butt-head” T-shirt injured a 12-year-old girl as he tried to hurl a green sex toy onto the court at a New York Liberty “Women’s Empowerment” basketball game at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, police said Saturday.
Cops released surveillance footage of the attacker in the hopes someone would recognize him. If arrested, the man could be facing assault charges, cops said.
The bizarre practice of throwing sex toys onto the court is becoming more and more common during WNBA games as these disruptions go viral online, officials said.
The child was watching the Liberty defeat the Dallas Wings 85-76 around 8:45 p.m. on Tuesday when the suspect hurled the sex toy from his seat.
The item missed the court, instead hitting the child in the leg, cops said. She suffered a minor injury, but refused medical attention.
The sex-toy hurler left the stadium a few moments later.
No arrests have been made.
The Liberty was hosting a “Women’s Empowerment” night at Barclays Center when the sex toy nearly hit the court.
In the last week, sex toys have been thrown on court during games in Atlanta on July 29, Chicago on Aug. 1, Los Angeles on Aug. 5 and Chicago again on Thursday night, with the most recent object hitting the court in the closing seconds of the Atlanta Dream’s victory over the home-team Sky, WNBA officials said.
One of the intimate devices nearly hit Los Angeles Sparks guard Sophie Cunningham during the team’s game against the Indiana Fever.
Security guards at these arenas aren’t snagging the sex toys, which are usually plastic, as fans enter the stadium, Ty Richmond, the president of the event services division at Allied Universal Security, a company that provides security services to many NBA and WNBA games, told the Associated Press.
“Not all stadiums are using a screening process that’s consistent and can detect [the sex toys] because of what it would require — pat-down searches, opening the bags, prohibiting bags,” he said. “[It’s] the conflict of expediency, of getting fans into the arena and into the venue, which is an important issue, and security and safety.”
Cops are asking anyone with information about the man who threw the sex toy at Barclays to contact NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
With News Wire Services
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