Athletes as targets

In less turbulent times, basketball legend Slick Watts often partied with a few teammates and dozens of fans after games at the Royal Esquire Club in the Columbia City neighborhood or at a popular nightspot called Sunday's, which was a few blocks away from the old Coliseum, where the Sonics played.

"We'd play backgammon and jam until 4 in the morning," Watts recalled.

It was customary for Watts, a playmaking guard for the Sonics from 1973-78, to invite folks back to his Bellevue home to keep the party going. He remembers one time hosting as many as 200 people — strangers mostly — until the wee hours of the morning.

"And it wasn't like we did that just once or twice," he said. "We did it all the time. And not just me, Spencer [Haywood] and Fred [Brown], too. We never had to worry about the things these boys have to worry about today.

"All anyone ever stole from me was silverware. But that was then and this is now."

Those were the days before the drive-by shooting death of Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams, who was killed Jan. 1 when his stretch Hummer was sprayed by bullets after a nightclub dispute following a New Year's Eve party at a Denver nightclub. Watts never worried about being the victim of home-invasion robberies like those that befell two prominent NBA players this summer. Nor did he ever think he'd be murdered in his bedroom like Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor, who police say was killed by four young thieves.

Just last weekend, Indiana Pacers guard Jamaal Tinsley was shot at with an assault weapon in front of an Indianapolis hotel. Tinsley was not injured in the attack, which occurred after he and his group were followed by two vehicles after leaving a nightclub.

It's understandable why Sonics guard Earl Watson thinks professional athletes are being targeted for violence.

"I feel we're in a position where we can't protect ourselves," he said. "We're just open targets. I think we're vulnerable. Security can't be with you 24/7. I feel like if I was put in the position to protect myself, at the end of the day I'm going to be seen as the bad guy.

"If anything were to happen, it would be written as Earl Watson did this to whoever. I feel like we're just open targets. It's hunting season. Take your pick. You can say, 'Don't go to the club.' You can say, 'Don't go out on the streets,' but it's happening at your house now. Nowadays, dudes don't care. They're trying to kill athletes and take what they got."

Two men were charged and two others are being investigated in the armed robberies of Minnesota Timberwolves forward Antoine Walker and New York Knicks center Eddy Curry in their Chicago-area homes.

Walker was robbed at gunpoint July 9; cash, jewelry and his Mercedes were taken from his home.

Later that month, assailants forced their way into Curry's $4 million home and restrained Curry, his wife and an employee with duct tape before stealing money and jewelry. Police suspect the Curry and Walker incidents are related.

Former Sonics guard Ray Allen, now with the Boston Celtics, doesn't own a gun, but for the past seven years he has employed an armed bodyguard for protection. When he played in Seattle, Allen's stepfather, Derek Hopson, was the intended victim of a murder plot.

In 2005, Allen said he and his family received multiple death threats, and last season the Sonics hired his bodyguard — Chris "Rhythm" Chamberlain — as the team's full-time security officer.

"I don't advocate my clients carrying guns because handguns are not always the answer," said Chamberlain, who has worked for singing group Boyz II Men and rappers Nas and DMX. "That's why they hire me. I try to tell them, 'Your profession is basketball. Leave everything else to the professional.'

"I teach security, safety first and then prevention. Just teaching guys what it is to go from college to pros when you're making all this money. I tell them, they're celebrities now, no different than Britney Spears, and you can't do some of the things you used to do. You can't party at a $20 club when you make $15 million."

Some athletes say bodyguards aren't always the answer, though.

Chicago Bulls forward Joe Smith says he hired bodyguards when he entered the NBA 13 seasons ago, but he no longer uses them.

"I think that drew more attention than just me being out by myself, so I just kind of went away from that a little bit," Smith told USA Today.

At times, professional athletes contribute to violent situations, as in the cases of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and Golden State Warriors forward Stephen Jackson, who were implicated in incidents outside nightclubs.

Lewis pleaded guilty in June 2000 to obstruction of justice in a double-murder case, and Jackson pleaded guilty to criminal recklessness in firing a gun outside an Indianapolis strip club in October 2006.

Jackson told police an altercation occurred inside the club between patrons and teammates Tinsley, Marquis Daniels and Jimmie Hunter. The players left the building, followed by the patrons. Surveillance videotape shows Jackson being struck by a car, but it does not show him firing his gun five times. Tinsley and Daniels also had guns in their cars and each has a weapons permit.

When asked about the incident last week, Jackson said bluntly: "I had to protect myself. I could have died that night." He offered no further explanation and declined to say whether he owns a gun.

"I don't carry guns because I don't want to get the point where I have to use them, but I understand why guys do carry guns," Watson said. "If you're an athlete, people know that they can pretty much say what they want to say to you, do what they want to do to you. We're competitive by nature, so your first instinct is to respond. And even when you walk away, or try to walk away, you're seen as the bad guy."

Certainly the line is blurry.

The court of public opinion has seemingly convicted Tennessee Titans cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones for his role in a shooting melee in a Las Vegas strip club during NBA All-Star weekend that left a man paralyzed.

Former Seahawks cornerback Ken Hamlin, however, may have been the victim of an October 2005 incident in which he suffered serious head injuries outside a Seattle nightclub during an altercation with two men.

"You can do everything you're supposed to do and that may still be not enough," said former Sonics guard Ronald "Flip" Murray, who was nearly a victim of a home invasion in April.

According to reports, two masked men attempted to enter an open front door before the Detroit Pistons reserve slammed it shut and ran for cover. He told police the men fired three shots and two went through the front door.

Murray and a female friend who had returned with him from a nightclub were uninjured in the attack.

Murray said his experience has made him more guarded.

"I had trust issues before, but even more so now," he said. "Trust no one. Be aware of your surroundings."

Bernard Tolbert, the NBA's senior vice president of security, gives similar common-sense advice to players in a preseason interactive program called Safe-Net. The demonstration involves mock scenarios on how players should respond during public confrontations and home invasions.

Most professional athletes have some type of security at home. They live in gated communities or install security systems with surveillance cameras and motion detectors.

Sonics rookie Kevin Durant chose the latter for his Mercer Island home; Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard, whose father is a former police officer, has two dogs for protection.

"That's probably the best protection that you can have," Howard said.

Some would argue there's no safe haven for professional athletes.

It's impossible to find reliable statistics on the number of crime victims in the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball and the NHL. But since Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce was nearly stabbed to death in 2000, more than two dozen professional athletes reportedly have been murdered, robbed or victimized, including Los Angeles Clippers guard Cuttino Mobley; retired NFL receiver Keyshawn Johnson; former Cincinnati Reds outfielder Dernell Stenson, who was shot to death in an apparent carjacking in November 2003; and basketball player Julius Hodge.

The incidents seem random. However, Harry Edwards, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, says the majority of professional athletes who are victims in high-profile crimes are African-American, as are the perpetrators.

"When we look at professional sports and we see a Darrent Williams from the Broncos, a Sean Taylor, when we see the football player from Miami [Bryan Pata] who was murdered out behind his apartment or the track athlete at Mississippi [Rodney Lydale Lockhart] who was murdered in his dorms or the young football player who was murdered at the University of Memphis [Taylor Bradford] outside of his dorm, we are looking at the tip of an iceberg," Edwards said. "And when it works its way up to the athlete, the individuals who at one time used to get a pass in the community, now they are just another individual out there who is vulnerable of being murdered.

"When you look at that dimension of it, we have to wonder — it's not that a Sean Taylor is dead or a Darrent Williams is dead, the wonder is that there is not more that are killed and murdered. If you go beyond just the facts of violence and look at the environment out of which so many of these athletes come from, you begin to understand something else about the dynamics of this situation."

The leading cause of death in 2004 for black males ages 15-34 was homicide, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In an essay on violence among African Americans, Dr. Tony Jackson, a professor of psychology at Skyline College in San Bruno, Calif., writes: "It is indeed tragic that the black male has a one in 21 chance of being murdered in his lifetime, compared to a one in 104 chance for the black female, a one in 131 chance for the white male and a one in 369 chance for the white female. It is interesting that though black males comprise only six percent of the total population of the United States, they account for over 34 percent of all murder victims."

In a study by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, 94 percent of black homicide victims in from 1976-2005 were killed by someone of the same race.

"There is an undeclared state of war on African-American men, and athletes are not immune," Edwards said. "Having money doesn't insulate professional athletes from this national epidemic and in some cases, it only exacerbates the problem. As the saying goes, the more money you have, the more problems you have."

Watson tells a story of his most harrowing incident since he turned pro six years ago.

While driving at night to his Los Angeles home last year, he was followed.

"I just kept driving," he said. "I didn't go home. I wasn't about to show them where I live. I just kept driving. Turned off my lights. I was speeding. I was going crazy. I was way up in the canyons and going 50, 60 on side streets trying to shake him. So many things were running through my head. I was at the point where I was going to run into him head on, jump out the car and run.

"I wanted to roll down my window to see who it was, but if you roll down the window you could get shot. I could have called the police, but by the time the police get there, anything could happen. I never drove that car in L.A. again."

When told he might be paranoid, Watson said: "I'm not paranoid. I understand where I'm at in life. You have to be suspicious. You have to always be aware of your surroundings. You have to be cautious of everything around you.

"People make the mistake that my contract is in my pockets or at my house. It's not. I don't even carry cash. If you rob me, you'll just be upset. But I'm not going to give you the chance. I'm not going to be a victim."

Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com