Ja Morant, a star player for the Memphis Grizzlies, is accused of assaulting a 17-year-old, brandishing a gun, and threatening a mall security guard.
Molly Hensley-Clancy of the Washington Post reports that Morant was accused of striking a teenager “12-13 times” during a pickup basketball game at the 23-year-residence old’s last summer, and that the police report can be seen here.
He told authorities from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office that after beating him, Morant walked inside the house and “re-emerged with a pistol visible in the waistline of his trousers and his hand on the firearm.” This information was received by Hensley-Clancy.
The security director of a Memphis shopping center told police that he had been “threatening” by Morant and a member of his gang in the parking lot a few days before the alleged attack.
In an interview with police, Morant claimed that he “swung first” during the alleged altercation with the youngster, but that he was acting in self-defense because the teen had thrown a basketball at his head and advanced toward him.
According to a statement sent to Hensley-Clancy by the Shelby County District Attorney’s office, prosecutors decided “there was not enough evidence to continue with a case” against Morant and so decided not to file charges.
TMZ Sports reported that the teen had sued Morant in September
Earlier on January 3rd, The 17-year-old told police that he “accidentally” smacked Morant in the face with a ball, prompting Morant to ask a spectator, “Should I do it to him?” before knocking him to the ground with “a closed fist,” as evidenced by court records.
The court papers quote Ja Morant as saying the youngster “made verbal threats that he’d ‘fire his house up,'” which “placed him and his family in terror.”
The child told police that Morant and his companion had punched him so hard that he had been knocked to the ground, and that he had suffered a “big knot” on the side of his head as a result. According to Hensley-Clancy, deputies also noted that “they noticed the boy’s injuries” in the report.
According to a story by Bob Kravitz and Sam Amick of The Athletic from last month, the NBA looked into claims made by the Indiana Pacers that friends of Morant’s “aggressively accosted” members of the Pacers’ traveling party after their game at FedEx Forum on January 29.
Someone in a “slow-moving Vehicle” that Morant was travelling in “focused a red laser on them,” according to the Pacers’ traveling party. There was no indication that the laser was part of a firearm.
The NBA’s inquiry “substantiated that a postgame scene evolved that was combative,” according to NBA spokesperson Mike Bass, who talked to Kravitz and Amick, but the organization “could not confirm that any individual threatened others with a weapon.”
Following the report’s release, Morant tweeted that a buddy of his had been banned for a year from attending Grizzlies home games. After an NBA inquiry, he was not suspended for the event.
Morant is in his fourth year with the Grizzlies and is a two-time All-Star. With a 37-23 record, they are in second place in the Western Conference. Find out more only here at onlinesportsbetting.ph.
