SEATTLE—Prosecutors in Washington state charged former NBA star Shawn Kemp on Friday with first-degree assault in a parking lot shooting last month over a stolen cellphone, saying that in a text message just before the shooting, Kemp wrote, “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 he returned fire in self defense after tracking and trying to retrieve a cellphone that had been stolen from him earlier that day.
In a written statement sent by defense attorney Tim Leary on Friday, Kemp’s legal team said he would plead not guilty: “He is confident that once the jury hears from the witnesses and sees the evidence at trial, they will conclude that he was justified in defending himself that afternoon.”…