All of this might have been prevented if Lawson had chosen not to climb behind the wheel and instead called Lyft, a ridesharing service he promoted in a recent video.
See also: Nuggets' Ty Lawson Allegedly Pushed Pregnant Girlfriend Whose Mom Called the Cops, published in August 2013
According to Fox31, Lawson's white Mercedes was pulled over at about 1:15 a.m. Friday, January 23, on the 3400 block of Park Avenue.The speed limit along that stretch of Park is 35 miles per hour. He was allegedly going 61.
During the stop, Lawson reportedly admitted that he'd had some alcohol -- and the police report cited by Fox31 notes that he had alcohol on his breath and botched a sobriety test.
He was subsequently cited for speeding, careless driving and what's described as a "second-offense DUI," with the first bust said to have taken place in Missouri. But this accounting skips yet another driving-under-the-influence arrest in 2008, when he was a twenty-year-old student at the University of North Carolina.
And then there was his 2013 arrest for allegedly pushing his pregnant girlfriend, Ashley Pettiford. Here's how we described the police report in a contemporary post: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.The charges in the Pettiford incident were ultimately dropped -- but that's unlikely to happen this time around. And there have been repercussions on the court, too. Thanks to his Friday arrest, Lawson missed the Nuggets' game that night with the Boston Celtics, a terrible team Denver should have handled at home but didn't; the Nugs faltered in the closing seconds. And while Lawson was back on the court last night against the Washington Wizards and had a great game, notching 31 points and twelve assists, he missed an open shot in overtime that would have tied the score and forced a second OT. Hence, the Nuggets' current losing skid continues, and Lawson's legal problems seem apt to become the latest distraction among many this season.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.
The situation could easily have been avoided, and Lawson knows it. The folks at South Stands Denver remembered that one episode of Lawson's web series, Life of Ty, was built around him using a phone app to call a Lyft and having a woman drive him around town. And while he was clearly sober at the time the video was made, Lyfts work when you're drunk, too.
Look below to see Lawson's latest mug shot, followed by the Life of Ty clip, a Fox31 report about his arrest (including his apology to fans) and highlights/lowlights from last night's Denver loss to the Wizards.
Send your story tips to the author, Michael Roberts.
