SEATTLE (AP) — Washington state prosecutors on Friday charged former NBA star Shawn Kemp with first-degree assault in a parking lot involving shooting at a stolen cell phone last month, saying Kemp wrote in a text message just before the shooting: “I’m about to shoot this (expletive).”
Kemp was arrested after the shooting outside the Tacoma Mall on March 8. No one was injured and Kemp’s lawyers have insisted that he returned fire in self-defense after tracking down and trying to recover a mobile phone stolen from him earlier that day.
In a written statement sent Friday by attorney Tim Leary, Kemp’s legal team said he would plead not guilty: “He is confident that once the jury hears the witnesses and sees the evidence at trial, they will conclude that he was justified in defending himself that afternoon.”
A probable Tacoma police statement filed in Pierce County Superior Court on Friday did not indicate that Kemp had been fired upon. It said some of his statements were not corroborated by surveillance video, and that the text message sent just 13 minutes before he arrived at the mall showed his intent.
According to the document, Kemp told police that after being fired upon, he went back to his own vehicle, which he had parked a few spaces away, to get his own gun. But the video showed him armed with the weapon as he approached the parked Toyota 4Runner where he had tracked his phone.
According to the statement, Kemp tracked his phone to a Toyota 4Runner SUV parked near a JCPenney department store. He parked his own car, a Porsche, a few spots away, took a gun from a backpack and approached the 4Runner, the statement said.
According to the statement, he shot the Toyota three times and then threw his gun into some bushes. The driver of the 4Runner appeared to dodge one of the shots and eventually drove off, police said. Only about five minutes elapsed from the time Kemp arrived to the time the 4Runner left.
The bullets that struck the 4Runner passed through the front license plate mount, the front quarter panel towards the steering wheel and through the front passenger door.
Kemp will be arraigned on May 4.
Kemp, who owns two licensed cannabis stores in Seattle, was a six-time NBA all-star and played for the Seattle SuperSonics from 1989 to 1997. He also played for Cleveland, Portland and Orlando.
Kemp made his NBA debut during the 1989-1990 season as a 20-year-old who had never played college basketball. He became known for his high-flying dunks.
