{"id":124925,"date":"2025-06-26T01:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T01:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/124925\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T01:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T01:17:09","slug":"hawks-dream-reporter-tabitha-turner-opens-up-on-alleged-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/124925\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawks, Dream reporter Tabitha Turner opens up on alleged assault"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Dream sideline reporter Tabitha Turner spoke publicly from The Cochran Law Firm in Atlanta in a press conference addressing a recent incident involving her and an Uber driver, where Turner accused said driver of assaulting her during her ride.<\/p>\n

According to a report from the Hapeville Police Department, which Fox 5 in Atlanta obtained<\/a>, Turner was picked up by an Uber driver, Nicole Smith, at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Saturday afternoon after returning from a work assignment.<\/p>\n

During the ride, Turner and Smith had a dispute after Turner asked Smith to roll up the windows in the car because of the extreme heat. Ultimately, Smith refused, got frustrated, and pulled over before asking Turner to get out of her car and find a new ride to her destination.<\/p>\n

Turner then requested for either a refund on her ride or for the authorities to be called to settle the dispute. Smith refused, instead allegedly pepper-spraying Turner before attempting to physically pull her from the car.<\/p>\n

The entire incident was recorded on Turner\u2019s phone, which was enough evidence for the Hapeville Police Department to determine that Smith was the aggressor in the incident, putting a warrant out on Smith for\u00a0charges of battery and simple battery.<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s attorney, Miguel A. Dominguez, did the majority of the talking about the incident during Turner\u2019s press conference, which was recorded in its entirety for the Fox 5 Atlanta YouTube page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But when Dominguez opened the floor to Turner to answer questions from the media, Turner recalled the incident and explained the emotional toll that it has caused her. This includes threats from people on social media after Smith shared her own account of the incident publicly<\/a>, spreading what Turner says are lies about her character.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have received threats,\u201d said Turner. \u201cAbout my karma that is coming to me. Defaming my character. Calling me all kinds of names. Saying things about why I attacked her and just how horrible of a person I am. Attacking me as a mother. Trying to paint me as someone who is violent. They flooded my social media with threats. They have reached out to people I work with and work for. Last night, leaving the studio, my producer walked me to my car. And they offered to follow me on the highway.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a one-year-old daughter who I like to take to the games with me. And I can\u2019t take her. Because I don\u2019t know who is going to be there to attack me, based on what she said. I have opportunities with the league that I don\u2019t know what is going to happen because of what she is saying. People questioning my character. I just wanted to go home. I just wanted to see my daughter. I\u2019m so grateful to the Dream for standing by me and saying if I need extra security, they got me. But I didn\u2019t ask for this.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Obviously, nobody should have to feel afraid to go to work every day. So hopefully, this message from Turner on the matter helps put an end to the threats she is receiving from this incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Wednesday, Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Dream sideline reporter Tabitha Turner spoke publicly from The Cochran Law Firm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,7689,208,3874,7,677,6,25275],"class_list":{"0":"post-124925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-hawks","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-dream","10":"tag-atlanta-hawks","11":"tag-atlantahawks","12":"tag-basketball","13":"tag-hawks","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-tabitha-turner"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114747031205444473","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}