Shawn Kemp, a Seattle SuperSonics icon, was booked into the Pierce County Prison on Wednesday, according to FOX 13 News. According to sources close to Kemp, the shooting occurred in self-defense.
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Shawn Kemp, a former NBA player, was arrested and booked into a Pierce County (Washington) jail on Wednesday in connection with a drive-by shooting. Tacoma police say shots were fired early Wednesday afternoon after an incident between the passengers of two vehicles near the Tacoma Mall. According to a police department social media announcement, no injuries were recorded, and one of the cars departed the area.
A gun was found, and an investigation is underway. Kemp, 53, was jailed on a felony drive-by gunshot charge at 5:58 p.m. local time, approximately four hours after the event, according to Pierce County online records. Kemp was a six-time NBA All-Star who spent 14 seasons in the league, eight of them with the Seattle SuperSonics, who drafted him 17th overall in 1989.
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Kemp has been in six NBA All-Star games. In the 1989 Draft, he was a first-round choice. He played 625 games for the Sonics from 1989 to 1997, helping them reach the NBA Finals in 1996. Kemp was arrested in 2005 in Shoreline for drug possession and again in 2006 in Texas for drug possession.
Kemp has pursued several local business prospects based on his Sonics experience since his retirement from professional basketball. Shawn Kemp’s Cannabis has two sites in Seattle, which he and his business partners run. The Belltown site was the city’s first black-owned marijuana shop.
Kemp was also the proprietor of Oskar’s Kitchen, a Lower Queen Anne sports bar that closed in 2015. Kemp was a member of the movement to bring an NBA team back to Seattle in 2022, telling The Athletic that he wouldn’t stop until the city had “the actual Sonics back.”
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