Both LaMelo Ball and his team, the Charlotte Hornets, are being sued by a North Carolina mother who claims the 22-year-old basketball star ran over her son’s foot when he approached LaMelo for an autograph at a red light.
Tamaria McRae says her son, Angell Joseph, now 12 years old but 11 when the alleged incident happened, waited outside the employee entrance for Ball after the Hornets hosted a promotional event called “Purple and Teal Day at the Hive” last October.
In court documents filed on Tuesday, May 21, McRae says that Ball saw her son standing next to the car and drove away anyway, “severely” injuring her son “in a grossly negligent and reckless manner in that he accelerated his vehicle forward suddenly and without warning and struck.”
McRae recounted the incident in an interview with Charlotte station WSOC-TV. She recalls her son telling Ball, “LaMelo, I love you,” before asking for an autograph, only for the star athlete to ignore him and drive off. It was then that she noticed her son after Ball’s car had taken off, saying, “I just saw my son kind of go down, and I thought maybe he had dropped something.”
McRae’s attorney, Cameron deBrun, told ESPN Angell injured his foot and back in that incident; however, the outlet followed up by citing a report from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department that said the child suffered some bruises and scratches and described his injuries as “minor.”
According to McRae, Angell has suffered both physically and emotionally due to the incident.
“For a while, I couldn’t even recognize who my child was because, like depression, not being able to go outside and play,” McRae told WSOC-TV.
“When you see your children hurt, it hurts you,” she continued. “It’s been rough. It’s been real rough. I mean like I’m a strong person. This broke me. This right here, it really did.”
Thus far, neither the Charlotte Hornets nor LaMelo Ball have made a public statement in response to the lawsuit.
