the news is out and the altercation was two nights ago...
Update: Jazz center and rookie guard involved in Park City altercation
By Phil Miller and Chris Smart
The Salt Lake Tribune
Utah Jazz rookies Deron Williams and Robert Whaley have been charged with providing false information to a police officer, a Class C misdemeanor, after being involved in an altercation in Park City early Sunday morning.
Park City Police Department Lt. Rick Ryan said the two were charged after being brought in for questioning shortly after noon on Wednesday.
Ryan also confirmed that Affan Arslanagic, of Boulder, Colo., was arrested and booked into Summit County jail on an assault charge following the incident.
Ryan said his department's investigation continues.
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Ryan said. "But this is the first one I can recall with any Jazz players."
According to police, a fight in Harry O's, a private club on Park City's Main Street, began about 1:15 a.m. Sunday between the two Jazz players and six to eight men from Boulder. Police said Arslanagic and his friends were deriding the Jazz and saying the Denver Nuggets were a better team when the altercation erupted.
The fight spilled onto the street and included the throwing of garbage cans. Four police officers arrived after the fight had gone onto the street, then began questioning people when the incident came to a halt.
At that point, Lt. Ryan said, Whaley identified himself to police as Bobby Williams, while Deron Williams identified himself as Torrey Ellis.
Police also said Whaley's hand was bleeding. They weren't sure if he cut his hand on broken glass or a broken bottle. An ambulance arrived and he was treated at the scene for a laceration.
Whaley arrived at practice Sunday morning with six stitches in his right hand, a wound he said he sustained while grabbing away a butcher knife his 2-year-old son had found in the kitchen.
Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said Whaley, 23, changed his story in a Wednesday morning meeting with him and Kevin O'Connor, the Jazz's senior vice president of basketball operations. But, O'Connor emphasized, the team has not finished its investigation into the incident. NBA Security has dispatched personnel to Park City to conduct its own investigation.
"We will have to deal with that," O'Connor said Wednesday morning of Whaley's lying to the team.
O'Connor said the team will make no decisions about either player's future with the team or any punishment until it speaks with police and other witnesses. The Jazz had made it clear to the 6-foot-10 Whaley when they drafted him in June that, because of his history of arrests, the team would keep him "on a short leash," O'Connor said.
"If what happened up there becomes a situation that involves the police, then the tolerance is very little," O'Connor said Wednesday morning. "But I don't want to rush to judgement about 'punishment"."
Whaley was charged with taking part in a brawl in 2003 while attending Barton County (Kan.) Community College. In 2001, he stood trial for a sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl, but the trial ended in a hung jury.
O'Connor said he did not believe that Deron Williams had lied to the Jazz about the incident.
Whaley arrived at the Delta Center and met with Jazz officials Wednesday, but did not participate in the morning's shootaround for tonight's game with Portland at 7. The team leaves on a five-game trip Thursday, and O'Connor said he did not know whether Whaley would accompany the team. | 
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