Memphis Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant has been accused of punching a teen a dozen times and flashing a gun on him in a police report, as The Washington Post reports.
Per the police report, which refers to the same incident that saw Morant hit with a lawsuit last month, Morant has been accused of punching a 17-year-old in the head during a basketball game at his Memphis home in July, 2022. The boy told police that the NBA star and one of his friends hit him so hard they left him with a “large knot” on his head and knocked him to the ground. Following the fight, Morant allegedly went into his home and came out with a gun in his waistband to threaten him, the teen told authorities in interviews.
During the pick-up basketball game, the boy said that Morant threw the ball at him hard, so he threw it back just as hard. The ball “slipped through [his] hands” and hit Morant on the chin, which the teen said started the violent interaction between them. “Do I do it to him?” Morant asked his friend, to which the friend replied, “Yeah, do it.”
The teen said Morant punched him in the jaw, while his friend punched him from the other side. “I fell to the ground, trying to cover my face, so I wouldn’t get hit in the face,” the 17-year-old told police. “I got, started getting hit, punched in my head, everything else. ... Ja hit me like 12 to 13 times.” While the boy said Morant did not aim the gun at him when he “came outside with his gun,” he did allegedly place his hand on it. “His dad was yelling at him, like: ‘No, no, no. Go back. Go back in the house,’” the boy claimed.
Following the altercation, the teen’s mother filed a police report and took him to hospital. In interviews with police, Morant has claimed he acted in self-defense and claimed the teen threw the ball at his head and then took a step towards him. Despite insisting that he felt the need to “protect” himself from the teen, he confirmed he “swung first” while suggesting “the ball was the first swing to me.” In sworn affidavits from several witnesses, Morant’s friends alleged the boy deliberately threw the ball at the Grizzlies player and “squared up” after the interaction. None of them confirmed or denied if he came outside with a gun after Morant struck him.
Elsewhere in the police report, Morant was accused of threatening a head of security at a Memphis mall after his mother got into a dispute with an employee at a Finish Line store. She called Morant after getting into a verbal argument with the employee, and he allegedly showed up later with an entourage of around nine or so others. When he was confronted by the mall security director, he refused to leave the parking lot of the Memphis mall and police arrived at the scene.
“As the group was leaving the premises … Ja Morant said, ‘Let me find out what time he gets off,’ ” reads the police report, which alleges one of his crew pushed the director. The guard informed authorities he intended to file a report on the incident "because he felt threatened by the statement from Ja Morant." The interaction happened just four days before the one with the teen at his home.
