Latest news with #PierceCountyProsecutingAttorney'sOffice
The Herald Scotland
6 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
Shawn Kemp pleads guilty to assault charge from 2023 shooting
With the guilty plea, prosecutors recommended Kemp be sentenced to nine months in jail, one year of community service and to pay restitution. He will be sentenced on Aug. 22, when both sides of the case will be able to argue for their preferred sentence, according to the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. Officials said the standard range for the offense with someone with no criminal history is three to nine months. This was an "open" plea agreement, so both sides will be free to argue for their preferred sentence on Aug. 22. What Mr. Kemp pleaded guilty to is a felony and a strike offense. "Shawn is committed to moving forward in a positive direction," Kemp's attorney Tim Leary told The Seattle Times. "He was presented with an offer from the state that allows him to take responsibility, but I think also recognizes the self-defense nature of how this transpired." The incident occurred on March 8, 2023 when Kemp said his car was broken into, and several items such as his phone and memorabilia from his basketball career were stolen, according to court documents. Kemp was able to track his phone to a Toyota 4Runner and tried to talk to the driver about his missing phone. Later, he tracked his phone to the Tacoma Mall, where he saw the same 4Runner as before, the defense stated. Court documents said a man in the back seat of the 4Runner fired a gun at Kemp, who then fired back at the vehicle. The two occupants of the 4Runner were not injured but the vehicle was as it fled. Kemp was arrested in connection to the incident and was released a day later. The two men, ages 39 and 35, in the 4Runner are currently serving prison sentences due to other cases. A first-round selection in the 1989 NBA Draft, Kemp became a star for the Seattle SuperSonics, playing eight seasons with the team while forming an on-court combo with Gary Payton. He also had stints with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Portland Trail Blazers and Orlando Magic during the course of his 14 seasons in the league.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Ex-NBA star Shawn Kemp pleads guilty as trial begins for Tacoma shooting
Former NBA Seattle SuperSonics star Shawn Kemp pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree assault for shooting at an occupied car outside the Tacoma Mall after he'd tracked his stolen cell phone to the parking lot. The guilty plea came just as his trial was expected to begin Tuesday with jury selection. Kemp, 55, was initially charged with first-degree assault for the March 8, 2023 shooting. Last week prosecutors brought an additional first-degree assault charge against him and a charge of drive-by shooting, according to the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. When prosecutors first brought criminal charges against Kemp, they weren't aware that there were two people in the Toyota 4Runner that Kemp had fired upon. Police said neither of the two men in the vehicle were hurt. Kemp had tracked his iPhone to the car he shot at after his car was broken into the night before in Seattle, according to court records. His defense attorneys contended in a trial memorandum that when he approached the vehicle one of the occupants shot at him, and Kemp returned fire in self defense. Prosecutors had disputed that, saying video evidence didn't back up Kemp's account of what happened. A defense attorney for Kemp did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment. A sentencing hearing was set for Aug. 22.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Yahoo
Man arrested in death of Mount Tahoma football player to be released from jail
A 20-year-old man who was arrested in the killing of a Mount Tahoma High School football player has not been charged, pending further investigation, according to the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. The man was arrested Wednesday for the boy's death. The case is in 'no charges filed-pending' status, and the man will be released from the Pierce County Jail, Prosecuting Attorney's Office spokesperson Adam Faber told The News Tribune on Friday. Officers were dispatched just before 9:30 p.m. April 20 after calls were reported about gunfire in the 1700 block of East 41st Street, which is in the Salishan neighborhood of Tacoma, The News Tribune reported. The boy was wounded and taken to a local hospital where he died. The 20-year-old man was booked into the Pierce County Jail on suspicion of first-degree murder, according to the Tacoma Police Department this week. The victim was later identified as Veron Lockett, a junior at Mount Tahoma High School where he played football, according to a News Tribune report. A candlelight vigil in memory of Lockett was held at the school's football stadium on April 22. A GoFundMe has also been set up to support his family.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Yahoo
No ‘qualified immunity' for Pierce deputy in K-9 attack. What does it mean?
A Pierce County Sheriff's deputy who allegedly allowed his K-9 to wrongfully attack a domestic violence suspect near Puyallup in 2019 isn't protected from being sued for excessive force, a federal appeals court has ruled. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed that K-9 handler deputy Levi Redding isn't entitled to qualified immunity after he was accused of violating a woman's Fourth Amendment rights in an ongoing federal civil lawsuit brought against him and the Pierce County Sheriff's Office in 2022. Qualified immunity is a controversial legal doctrine that shields government officials, including law enforcement officers, from civil claims unless their alleged conduct passes a two-prong test: It's not enough to have purportedly violated a constitutional right, it must also be shown that the conduct was previously determined to be wrong by law. 'Even if there is an unconstitutional use of excessive force, government officials performing discretionary functions are entitled to qualified immunity unless the unlawfulness of their conduct was clearly established at the time,' the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted in its unpublished memorandum opinion on the case last month. In 2020, a Reuters investigation found that police were often granted immunity even when courts held that they used excessive force. The qualified immunity legal doctrine, established by the Supreme Court in 1967, is intended to protect government workers from frivolous lawsuits, Reuters reported. In the original complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for Western Washington, a woman who allegedly hit her boyfriend and his teenage son while intoxicated claimed that Redding, in a subsequent effort to find her in the neighborhood after she had left the home, unnecessarily deployed a department K-9 who mauled her left arm and caused permanent injuries. The Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, which is representing the sheriff's office and Redding, denied all alleged wrongdoing, sought to dismiss the case and asserted that no evidence in the matter had overcome Redding's presumptive qualified immunity, court records show. A federal judge threw out certain claims but left others intact, including the allegation that Redding had used excessive force and violated the woman's Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable seizure. Attorneys for the sheriff's office and Redding appealed the decision. The issue was argued and submitted to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December. In a March 19 memorandum opinion, the three-judge appellate panel's majority upheld the federal district court's decision, finding that Redding was not entitled to qualified immunity in the case. One judge dissented. Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's Office spokesperson Adam Faber declined to comment on the appeals court's decision, noting that the civil case was still being litigated. An attorney representing Jenni Ellis, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, didn't immediately return messages seeking to discuss the matter. Ellis, who Pierce County Superior Court records show wasn't charged with a crime, had left a home in the 8500 block of 60th Avenue E before deputies arrived sometime after midnight on March 12, 2019, according to her lawsuit. Ellis and her boyfriend were involved in a domestic dispute, where she allegedly struck him and, inadvertently, his 17-year-old son who tried to break up the fight, the suit said. Her boyfriend called 911 to deescalate the situation and Ellis reportedly left in her pajamas out into the pouring rain. The complaint claimed that Ellis was unarmed and, at 115 pounds, no real threat to law enforcement. After Redding deployed the department K-9, 'Zepp,' to locate her, the dog found her and bit and held onto her arm. The bite lasted for 25 to 41 seconds, the appeals court memo said. 'Deputy Redding did not give any verbal warnings that Jenni could hear and in fact Deputy Redding allowed K-9 Zepp to suddenly dart away from him and then attack Jenni as she was walking back home,' according to an amended version of the lawsuit. Zepp retired shortly before his ninth birthday in 2020. The sheriff's office celebrated the German Shepherd's 'unique tendency to chase but not bite,' The News Tribune wrote in a story on his retirement at the time. Attorneys for the Pierce County Sheriff's Office and Redding sought to poke holes in Ellis' claims: Ellis weighed between 150-155 pounds, she was carrying a bottle, she knew that police had been called and she was a proven threat to return to the home based on prior domestic altercations involving her, according to a court filing by the defendants. The K-9 was on a 30-foot leash held by Redding, who said he had received no response after calling out to Ellis by name and announcing himself as law enforcement, according to the filing. The dog located Ellis underneath her boyfriend's boat on a trailer in the front yard. After hearing a woman yelling, Redding went to Ellis, who allegedly had hold of the K-9, and commanded her to let go of the dog and to show her hands, the filing said. He then pulled her from underneath the trailer, with the dog's help, and found her hands to be empty. Ellis was taken to a local hospital where her blood-alcohol level was found to be .233, according to the filing. It said she was treated for three left-elbow lacerations that were consistent with Redding's description of events and inconsistent with claims that the biting was continuous or repetitive. 'Plaintiff later conceded under oath 'I don't remember a lot' about her seizure because her perception and memory were affected by her intoxication, surprise at being bitten, and the bite itself,' the filing said, adding that Ellis' false allegations had prevented her lawsuit from being dismissed. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that Zepp's bite-and-hold was a seizure and that Redding had acknowledged commanding Ellis to show her hands and let go of the dog, instead of commanding Zepp to release her, according to the appeals court's memorandum opinion. 'It is undisputed that Washington police patrol dogs are trained in the 'bite-and-hold' method of apprehension,' the appeals court wrote. 'This method trains a K9 to bite-and-hold after a search command unless it is restrained from doing so or commanded not to. That is exactly what happened here.' It agreed with the federal district court that there were issues raised for a jury over whether Ellis' alleged crime warranted a bite-and-hold, whether the officers' safety was actually threatened and whether Ellis resisted arrest or posed a flight risk. Instead of focusing on Zepp's purportedly unexpected contact with Ellis that led to the bite, the appeals court homed in on Redding's decision to deploy the dog and then to not command him to stop biting, the memo said. '[I]t was Redding's failure 'to call the dog off' that 'improperly encouraged the continuation of the attack,'' the appeals court wrote. 'A bite-and-hold dog is trained to keep biting until told to stop, and Redding never commanded K9 Zepp to stop biting Ellis, who could not surrender (or let go of the dog) because of the bite-and-hold.' The duration of the bite was longer than that in a 1998 case out of California, the memo said. In that case, a court denied an officer qualified immunity after the officer didn't call off his dog. 'The unlawfulness of Redding's conduct was clearly established, so he is not entitled to qualified immunity,' the appeals court wrote. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Ryan Nelson said it was irrelevant whether Ellis was fleeing, resisting arrest or posing a threat to Redding or her victims. 'What is undisputed and material is that Redding was told that Ellis was violent, potentially armed, fleeing arrest, and likely to return to her victims if not arrested,' Nelson wrote. 'Those facts — not the facts that Redding was unaware of — are what matter.' He also said that the court's precedent is that it's unreasonable to direct a police K-9 to continue biting a fully surrendered suspect under an officer's control. 'No matter how carefully a reasonable officer read [our caselaw] beforehand, he couldn't know that it's unlawful to use a dog to secure an arrestee who hasn't fully surrendered,' he wrote. 'And on no version of the facts had Ellis 'fully surrendered' or come 'under officer control' when Redding allowed the dog to continue biting her. Redding is thus entitled to qualified immunity.' In its decision, the appeals court also unanimously reversed the federal district court's upholding of two state claims, including negligence. A negligence claim must not be based on an intentional act, such as the use of excessive force, but instead is limited to purported negligence leading up to the act, the court noted. There's been no activity in the federal lawsuit since the issuance of the appeals court's memorandum opinion last month, court records show, and there appears to be no currently scheduled trial date in the case.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Yahoo
15-year-old arrested for fatal shooting of Tacoma man inside apartment building
An arrest has been made in Tacoma for the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Messiah Washington. Detectives and officers arrested a 15-year-old boy on Wednesday after they developed probable cause from their investigation. The teen was booked into the Remann Hall juvenile detention center on suspicion of first-degree murder, according to the Tacoma Police Department in a news release. The teen will appear for a hearing Friday morning at Remann Hall, according to a spokesperson for the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. Officers were dispatched just after 9 p.m. to an apartment building near the 1100 block of South L Street on Feb. 22. Washington suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene after life-saving measures were initiated. Washington died inside the apartment's elevator, just a few steps away from the unit that he shared with his father, his sister, Kiara Deas told The News Tribune. Deas said their father watched Washington take his last breath. 'My dad raised my brother. Him and my dad were together every day,' she said. 'He was very respectful, like you never would hear him being disrespectful to any adult. He had a lot of family around him, and we have a lot of people who loved him,' she said. Deas believes 'nothing is worth a life' and that the gun violence has to end. A GoFundMe has been set up to raise funds to support Washington's family as they take the time to grieve.
