NBA player’s father is fatally shot

Richard Jefferson, the father of veteran NBA player Richard Jefferson, was killed this week in a drive-by shooting in Compton, authorities said.

The elder Jefferson, 65, was shot shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday in the 600 block of West Peach Street, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

A resident of Inglewood, Jefferson was standing on the corner at West Peach Street and Paulsen Avenue. A dark-colored vehicle carrying several male occupants approached, and at least one person inside the car opened fire, the Sheriff ’s Department said.

Jefferson was shot several times in the torso. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Detectives are piecing together the motive of the shooting and did not release a description of the suspects. The investigators asked anyone with information about the slaying to contact the sheriff ’s Homicide Bureau at (323) 8905500.

The younger Jefferson, 38, has played in the NBA for 17 years, and in 2016 won a championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Last season he played for the Denver Nuggets. He was born in L.A. and told an interviewer that when he was 7, his mom moved him and his brothers to Arizona.

“We were living in South Central during the crack epidemic. I was born in 1980, so when we moved in 1987, it was right at the height of it,” he said. The family relocated “and started a new life,” he said.

He completed high school in Phoenix and attended the University of Arizona.

Jim McIsaac Getty Images RICHARD JEFFERSON, pictured in 2007, was born in Los Angeles and moved to Arizona as a child. His father, who lived in Inglewood, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Compton on Wednesday night, officials said.