Local parent handcuffed during basketball game

A man from Idaho Falls will be headed to court soon after police say he got into a pushing match with an officer during a Skyline basketball game.

The Idaho Falls Police Department said Chris Baker is the father of two Skyline starting guards. The incident happened in the school gym Friday night as Skyline High School was playing Bonneville High School.

The incident happened during halftime when tensions were high. Skyline’s coach had been ejected from the game after two technicals and one of Baker’s sons received a foul. Witnesses said after the foul was given Baker walked over to the referees and started yelling. Spokesperson for the Idaho Falls Police Department Joelyn Hansen said Baker later pushed school resource officer John Cowley who placed him in handcuffs.

“During this time when he was asked to leave the game, he became even more belligerent and in some ways combative, and so therefore he was arrested for disturbing the peace, battery on an officer and resisting arrest. They were issued as citations and they were all misdemeanor crimes,” Hansen said.

Quinn Thibodeau is a mental health counselor at the Pearl Health Clinic in Ammon. He said since it was Skyline’s first loss on their home court, it raises the stakes of the game and can cause spectators to react.

“You want to keep the home losses to nothing so that creates already an energy of anticipation. People are already walking into it with heightened emotions,” he said.

Thibodeau said the best thing for people to do is to think about who their actions will effect.

School officials at Skyline said violent incidents at sporting events is a rare thing. They also said they are conducting an investigating and reviewing the game to see if any extra steps need to be taken.

Bonneville High School ended up winning the game, 84-61.