Prosecutors Reportedly Shelved Ja Morant Assault Case Without Interviewing Witnesses

The details surrounding an altercation last summer between Grizzlies star Ja Morant and a teenage boy in Shelby County, Tenn., are coming to light.

The altercation between Morant and Joshua Holloway, who was 17 years old at the time, occurred during a pickup basketball game outside of Morant’s home.

According to a report from Molly Hensley-Clancy of The Washington Post, Morant hit Holloway so hard that it “knocked him to the ground and left him with a large knot on the side of his head.” 

The Shelby County District Attorney’s office reviewed the incident and determined there was not enough evidence to file charges.

However, according to a new report from Hensley-Clancy and Gus Garcia-Roberts of the Post, it took six weeks for prosecutors to speak to Morant about the incident, and then after talking with Morant, prosecutors elected to shelve the case without interviewing other witnesses.

“Aye, you good man,” detective Aaron Avant told Morant after the meeting was rescheduled. “At least you got in within a month’s time.”

After Morant told Avant that Holloway threw the ball at him and pulled up his pants, which he took as a threatening gesture, Morant said he acted in self-defense.

Avant appeared to side with Morant on this point, per the report.

“I got you,” Avant said. “Coming from where I come from, I know when you pull those pants up—aye, you mean business.”

Morant’s attorneys provided eight affidavits that supported the Grizzlies star’s version of the events. Prosecutors didn’t probe too much further, even after Holloway provided detailed information to authorities supporting his side of the story. Detectives wrote that all of the witnesses whose names were provided by Morant’s attorneys were either unable to be reached or stood them up after being contacted.

The Holloway family shared messages from Holloway’s cousin, Memphis guard Alex Lomax, sent to Morant and his close friend Davonte Pack on Instagram.

“Dam [sic] what’s good?” Lomax wrote. “Y’all beat up my youngin yesterday? Lil Joshhh?” Lomax asked.

“Ask lil bruh what he did,” Morant responded. “I gave him chances. Wouldn’t do a youngin like dat [sic] for no reason…lil bruh want people to feel sorry for him for something he caused.”

“Real n----- ain’t movin’ like that. That’s a kid,” Lomax responded.

“Real n----- ain’t gon [sic] get disrespected or a ball thrown at they face either,” Morant fired back.

Detectives dismissed the messages provided by the Holloway family when given to detectives.

“I guess this gonna sound bad but, to play devil’s advocate, with a kind of situation like that, he doesn’t really state what he did,” detective Melvin Harris told the Holloways.

Morant’s lawyers told police that Holloway’s mother had a history of trying to profit off bad situations or circumstances, and that this altercation was no different. 

The Holloway family sought $11 million in a civil suit against Morant, though meditation in the case failed. Holloway has refiled the lawsuit under his own name after recently turning 18, and the case was unsealed by a judge last week.

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this and won’t stop until I have answers as to why two grown men that beat up my son have not been charged or arrested,” Holloway’s mother wrote to Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr.

“My son ain’t went to Ja Morant’s house and beat up himself.”

Morant has still not been charged by police in connection with the incident, and there’s no indication that any charges are pending.

The Post report outlines a pattern in the investigations into Morant’s conduct. It also details an incident in which police failed to follow up with a shoe store salesman who filed a report that Morant and others had threatened him while on the job for close to an hour. Citing a police report from yet another incident, the Post reporters say that police also appeared to make “little effort” to identify a Morant associate who threatened a student after a verbal altercation involving Morant’s sister at a high school volleyball game.