L.A. sheriff asks James to match reward

DEPUTIES SHOT

The sheriff of Los Angeles County challenged LeBron James to “step up to the plate” to match the reward money being offered for information related to the ambush and shooting of two deputies as they sat in their patrol car Saturday night in Compton.

The reward had reached US$175,000 before Alex Villanueva specifically called out the Los Angeles Lakers star, who has been vocal about the shooting of unarmed Black people by police. Video of the shooting of the deputies shows a person walking up to a parked police car and firing a gun into the passenger-side window, then running. The wounded deputies, a 31-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man, underwent surgery Saturday night for multiple gunshot wounds.

“This challenge is to LeBron James. I want you to match that and double that reward,” Villanueva said on Monday. “I know you care about law enforcement. You expressed a very interesting statement about your perspective on race relations and on officer-involved shootings and the impact that it has on the African-American community. And I appreciated that. But likewise, we need to appreciate that respect for life goes across professions, across races, creeds, and I'd like to see LeBron James step up to the plate and double that.”

James, as of Tuesday, had not replied.

While playing inside the NBA's bubble this summer in Florida, James and others have worn Black Lives Matter shirts and briefly halted the playoffs after Jacob Blake was wounded in Kenosha, Wis. He has called out for justice for Breonna Taylor, an unarmed Louisville EMT who was shot and killed when officers entered her apartment on a no-knock warrant in March. The city of Louisville reached agreement on a settlement with Taylor's family, but an investigation continues into whether the officers who raided Taylor's apartment should face criminal charges.

“I know people get tired of hearing me say it but we are scared as a Black people in America,” he said after Blake was shot. “Black men, Black women, Black kids, we are terrified.” After the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, he tweeted, “We're literally hunted every day.”

In July, James, who donated bikes to police in his Akron, Ohio, hometown in 2008, said, “You guys don't understand unless you're a person of colour. I understand you might feel for us, but you can never really, truly understand what it is to be Black in America ... In 2016, Barack [Obama] was our president. We know what's going on now. Is that progress? I think we can all sit here and say that's not progress. The conversations that are being had right now, how many people are really listening, I think that's progress. We've got a long way to go.”