Have a hot take about Shawn Kemp’s drive-by shooting arrest? It can probably wait | Opinion
Roughly 24 hours after Sonics legend Shawn Kemp was arrested and booked into Pierce County Jail in connection to what police described as a drive-by shooting at the Tacoma Mall, here’s the big takeaway — the same as it always is in breaking news situations like these:
We barely know anything yet. We want to know everything, and we want to know it now — but that’s not how this works. And it’s not how it should work.
It’s a reality that’s important to keep in mind, even if it pushes against every internet-fueled, gratification instinct we have — the instinct to form an opinion, now, right this instant.
You know the one.
It should go without saying that Kemp — who spent the prime of his NBA career posterizing opposing players during the heyday of 1990s Seattle basketball — deserves the presumption of innocence, just like everyone else. On Thursday, the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office announced that Kemp would be released without charges, pending further investigation by Tacoma police.
All of that is fair and natural, and all of it will unfold in due time. It’s how the system works.
The only problem? We’re not a society that’s keen on waiting, are we? And it’s a toxic trend that stands ever-ready to bubble up at times like these.
We all have biases. We’re all righteous in our own minds. And we all have opinions — in an online world that rewards the fastest, hottest takes.
It’s a recipe that too often gets the best of us.
As news of Kemp’s arrest spread Wednesday evening, we found ourselves in familiar territory, even if the story’s details were fresh and few. In short order, Kemp’s arrest — and the reactions it spurred — became easy viral content. Anyone with a social media account had a platform, and those with the biggest platforms — the pundits and commentators and internet thought leaders — surely knew they’d be rewarded by weighing in.
With a few searches, or simply by scrolling down on our ever-present phones, there were out-of-context parking lot videos to watch and speculation and memes to digest, and most of all opinions — so many of them — waiting there for us. It was an addictive dopamine drip at the tip of our fingers, ready to be cranked, for better or worse.
It could be argued that, in Kemp’s case, the stakes of all this are rather low. The internet will do its thing, and in the end, he’ll be fine. He’s a local icon, an athlete revered by a generation of Seattle basketball fans, and unlike a random person caught up in a similar situation, he’ll have ample opportunity to share his side of the story. If necessary, he’ll surely have expert legal defense.
Unsurprisingly, within hours of the breaking news alerts, some of that was already materializing. People close to Kemp began describing the situation as self-defense, suggesting that the basketball legend was the victim of a recent theft who had tracked his stolen property to Tacoma, and this was hardly a drive-by shooting as it had been described. The description of events quickly bolstered the urge of his supporters to come out in defense of one of their heroes, regardless of whether arming yourself and taking the law into your own hands is advisable behavior, or, to put it another way, objectively dumb (again, if that’s what happened). The sides were already forming, facts be damned, with Team Kemp well represented, as you’d expect.
In just about any other reported drive-by shooting, of course, none of that would have happened. There would have been a tweet or short statement issued from the perspective of local law enforcement, a few subsequent news stories, and that’s about it. If someone was arrested, at best, they’d be just another person in handcuffs. They’d be chewed up, publicly judged and forgotten — all in the course of a news cycle, and all based on one, initial report from police.
But even if Kemp enjoys more advantages than most given his current legal predicament, there’s little doubt his fame also works against him — in a big way.
As a well-known athlete — and a well-known Black athlete — he instantly became an easy target for anyone eager to tee off and make a misguided point about guns, or crime or even, subtly or directly, race.
Predictably, some quickly compared Kemp to current NBA player Ja Morant, who has recently faced valid criticism for posing with a gun at a Denver-area nightclub in a video posted on social media. The comparisons — linking the two completely unrelated incidents — often relied on age-old coded stereotypes painting Black athletes as “thugs.”
Meanwhile, gun critics and champions of tougher firearm regulations also pounced on the opportunity. In this case, some noted that a gun seems to have done little more than make the situation more dangerous. Truthfully, we have no idea what happened yet, or if Kemp’s right to arm himself ultimately helped to protect him.
So where does it leave us?
It’s simple, if unsatisfying. We’ll just have to wait, like it or not.
In the coming days and weeks, Kemp could very well be cleared of legal wrongdoing. Similarly, if an investigation ultimately reveals he broke the law or acted negligently, he’ll deserve every ounce of criticism that comes his way.
Until then, we’d be wise to pump the brakes and take a deep breath.
In the future, it’s what we should train ourselves to do from the start.
This story was originally published March 9, 2023 at 1:53 PM.
