Now, we've obtained a copy of Lawson's arrest report, and it provides many more details. Among them: Pettiford's mom called authorities out of concern for her daughter, who's six months pregnant -- and after Pettiford got angry about him talking on the phone with another woman, he's said to have pushed her.
At 9:34 a.m. on August 17, according to the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office report, on view below in its entirety, deputies were dispatched to Lawson's home, located on East Wesley Drive, for a welfare check on Pettiford after a call from Rose Day, her mother, who lives in Virginia.
Day said she'd been on the phone with her daughter during the early morning hours. She added that Pettiford and Lawson had been involved in an argument, and in the midst of it, the phone went dead. Moreover, she'd been unable to contact Pettiford on the phone since then, and she was concerned because her daughter was six months pregnant and "Lawson has pushed her in the past."
After Lawson answered the door, deputies told him they needed to speak with Pettiford, who insisted that everything was fine even though she was crying and visibly upset, the narrative maintains. After some gentle prodding, though, she eventually told the officers what happened from her perspective.Lawson returned home at about 2:30 a.m., Pettiford said -- and she subsequently heard him speaking with another woman on the Bluetooth box in the bedroom. Afterward, "she decided that she was tired of all of it and was going to pack her things and move," the report notes.
As she grabbed her suitcase and began putting her things inside, Lawson appeared and the two began arguing. Amid the yelling, she told the deputies that Lawson began grabbing her clothes and throwing them around under the guise of helping her pack -- something he's said to have known would bother her, because she's "meticulous about her clothing."
At one point, Lawson was taking things from the closet, and she asked him to let her do it. Instead, he allegedly said, "I'll get the clothes" while grabbing both of her arms above the elbow and pushing her toward the bed. She momentarily freed herself, but she said he pushed her again and somehow she wound up on the bed: She was unsure if he'd pushed her down or she'd fallen on it.
Pettiford then found Lawson's cell phone and heaved it toward the hallway wall before picking up her own phone and calling her mom. In response, Lawson took the phone from her and chucked it against a wall -- and when it didn't immediately break, he carried it to the bathroom and ran water over it.
Afterward, they tossed clothes out of each other's closet before finally running out of steam and going to bed, Pettiford said. She hadn't called the police, she went on, because her baby was fine -- she'd felt it moving. But because "Lawson feels he is invincible and doesn't treat her very well," she planned to "fly back to Virginia to live with her mom" and have her property shipped back there.We don't know if any of that's taken place. But Pettiford wasn't able to enact this plan immediately, because she was arrested and booked on suspicion of domestic violence-related property damage, presumably for introducing his phone to a wall. Lawson faces the same charge, plus misdemeanor domestic violence-related harassment. He's also the target of a protection order that calls for him not to make contact with Pettiford.
Here's the complete arrest report, followed by our previous coverage.
Around the same time news broke that Broncos linebacker Von Miller is listed as a witness in the Fero's quintuple-murder death penalty case, we learned that Ty Lawson, star guard for the Denver Nuggets, had been arrested along with his girlfriend, Ashley Pettiford, in a domestic dispute over the weekend. Details below.
According to Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson, speaking to 7News, the incident took place Saturday night at Lawson's home, located near the intersection of South Wabash Street and East Iliff Avenue.
No actual physical contact between Lawson and Pettiford was reported. Instead, Robinson said the matter apparently revolved around raised voices and damaged cellphones. And because the matter struck deputies on the scene as a "mutual situation," both Lawson and Pettiford were taken into custody -- him on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic violence-related harassment and property damage, her on just the latter offense.Both were reportedly held in custody until a judge granted bond on Monday -- and put a mandatory protection order in place against Lawson, who's now prohibited from contacting Pettiford.
This isn't Lawson's first run-in with the law. In another parallel with Von Miller, he was busted in January for "flight to avoid prosecution" in relation to April 2012 traffic violations -- careless driving, driving with a license under restraint and permitting an unauthorized person to drive. He eventually pleaded guilty to the latter and the whole thing went away without becoming a Miller-style public embarrassment. Until now, that is.
After Lawson regained his freedom, the Denver Post noted his retweet of a post by CBS4 sportscaster Vic Lombardi expressing surprise at the development. As you can see, Lawson prefaced the RT by more or less shrugging off the matter:
20 day old fish RT @VicLombardi: Ty Lawson does not fit the profile. At all. Something fishy here.
— Ty Lawson (@TyLawson3) August 20, 2013
Meanwhile, Lawson's teammate, Wilson Chandler, played the whole thing for a laugh in a tweet of his own....
Young Ty trying to get that street cred up lol
— Wilson Chandler (@wilsonchandler) August 20, 2013
...before adding this:
All jokes, that story is suspect. He's not even on that type of time.
— Wilson Chandler (@wilsonchandler) August 20, 2013
Last night, the Nuggets issued the usual statement about the situation: "We are fully aware of an incident involving Ty Lawson over the weekend. Per team policy and out of respect for the legal process, we will have no further comment at this time." But there's no question trouble with Ty translates to problems on the court.
With Andre Iguodala, Kosta Koufos and coach George Karl gone from last year's squad, and other teams in the NBA's Western Conference upgrading, the Nugs were already in danger of slipping unless Lawson could step up his game and enter elite territory. The last thing he needs is off-the-court issues, especially if what went down turns out to be more serious than originally thought.
Whatever the case, the following booking photos are unlikely to become prized possessions for either him or Pettiford.
More from our Sports archive: "Von Miller reportedly listed as potential witness in Fero's quintuple-murder case."
