Dealing with a problematic ‘Karen' just one day before his 29th birthday probably wasn't in his plans, but Los Angeles Clippers swingman Norman Powell was able to laugh it off by the end of it.
Powell, who is currently living and working out in Las Vegas, took to Instagram Live on Tuesday afternoon to livestream his encounter. Apparently, Powell and his friends were playing music she didn't like, prompting the lady, who's White, to berate him by saying he's not an American.
“She came here the first time and was saying she got in a fight,” Norman Powell explained on Instagram. “We told her to leave out the back. She left, she was gone for about 15, 20 minutes, came back, staying in the gym calling us un-American, saying we need to go back, calling us pu**y, a whole bunch of sh*t.”
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At one point, the woman squatted while taking her pants off. She was quickly wrested away from the workout equipment by one of the gym's owners or employees. The Clippers wing had all of this livestreamed to his Instagram story.
Members of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department arrived on the scene and took the woman away in handcuffs. A spokesperson for the department said “the woman was issued a misdemeanor citation at the scene for obstructing an officer.”
The woman was then “taken to a local hospital on a psychiatric hold.”
Powell, who just turned 29 years of age on Wednesday, came over with Robert Covington to the Clippers via a trade deadline deal with the Portland Trail Blazers. The San Diego native and former UCLA Bruin has talked a number of times about how excited he is to be back home.
Powell did suffer a foot injury soon after the trade, and his Clippers tenure was limited to just five regular-season appearances. In five appearances, Powell averaged 21.4 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.8 assists while shooting 50.1 percent from the field and 54.0 percent from beyond the arc.