As accused baby shooter Marty L. Kime entered a not guilty plea to the April drive-by murder of 1-year-old Malijah Grant, the baby girl’s parents and grandparents stood up in court, filled with anger against Kime.
They waved a large photo of Malijah and moved as close to the glass-window divider in the courtroom gallery as they could on Monday morning in King County Superior Court at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent. A county corrections officer moved forward to keep the family back from the window.
The relatives, dressed in T-shirts with a photo of Malijah, individually shouted out, “Piece of garbage,” “Don’t look down now,” “He shot my granddaughter,” “You’ve got your day coming,” and “Justice for Malijah.”
Corrections officers asked the family to quiet down when some of their shouts got too loud.
Kime, 24 whose hometown listings include Auburn and Seattle, pleaded not guilty to the second-degree murder of Malijah for allegedly firing a shot that hit the baby in the head on April 16 as she rode in a car seat in the backseat of her parents vehicle near Lake Fenwick Road and Reith Road. He also pleaded not guilty to first-degree assault charges for firing shots at the baby’s parents, who were not injured. Kent Police detectives say as many as eight shots were fired at the car.
Lisa Lynch, the baby’s mother, drove the vehicle. Martrice Grant, the father, rode in the front passenger seat, according to charging papers filed in December. County prosecutors say Kime targeted the baby’s father as part of a gang retaliation shooting, but a shot hit the girl instead. She died two days later at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Malijah lived in Kent with her parents.
Kime targeted the vehicle because he believed the victim’s father to be associated with a rival street gang known as Deuce 8, charging papers said. Kime, also known as YM (Young Marty), is a self-proclaimed member of the Low Profile gang. He has the gang name tattooed across his chest. He blamed the Deuce 8 gang for the Seattle murder last March of John Williams, his friend and fellow gang member, according to charging papers.
Detectives have said they do not believe Kime acted alone and that others might have been in the car with Kime when he reportedly fired shots at the car driven by Lynch. Police have not yet made any other arrests.
Prior to Kime’s plea, defense attorney Lisa Mulligan asked Judge Ronald Kessler to ban television and newspaper media from photographing her client’s face.
“The investigation is ongoing and there are questions not yet answered about the identities of everyone in the car,” Mulligan said to the judge. “I suspect the identity of the shooter would be a major factor in this case. I ask the court to order the media to only show my client from the neck down to preserve impartiality with a future juror.”
Kessler immediately denied the motion. Under court rules in the state, open access to cameras is presumed and limitations on access must be supported by reasons found by the judge to be sufficiently compelling to outweigh that presumption.
Kime is scheduled to return to court on Feb. 16 for attorneys to update the judge about the case. Unless a plea agreement is reached between the prosecutor and defense attorney, the judge eventually will set a trial date. Kime remains in the county jail with bail set at $5 million.
If convicted as charged for the murder and assaults, Kime could face a sentence range of 41-54 years in prison, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
Mulligan said during an interview after the plea that Kime has a young daughter of his own and that his heart breaks at a child being taken away. She added she has yet to receive discovery in the case. Discovery is the exchange of information between the prosecutor and defense about the witnesses and evidence they’ll present at trial.
Earlier in January, Kime received a 46-month prison sentence in U.S. District Court in Seattle on a separate case for illegal possession of a firearm in Seattle. He had felony convictions for theft (2013), assault (2012) and robbery (2010). Felons are not allowed to possess a firearm.
Kent detectives have not recovered the gun used in the baby shooting. But they matched shell casings found at the shooting scene to a gun Kime posed with in a cellphone photo. The Grant family was heading home to their apartment complex from shopping at Safeway in Kent when the shooting occurred.
A witness told police that Kime had borrowed a dark blue 2014 Chevrolet Cruze, the car used in the shooting, just a couple of hours before the shooting. Investigators found a fingerprint of Kime inside the vehicle’s glove box. Kime’s cellphone records placed his phone near the shooting as well as where he borrowed the car from in Kent, based on cell tower use by his phone.
Detectives also obtained a cellphone video showing Kime one day after the murder of the baby girl holding up a Deuce 8 hand sign with one hand and pointing a middle finger at the sign with his other hand. At the same time, Kime yelled “Deuce 8 … Killa.”
Kime was arrested in late April in Oregon for an outstanding warrant. Detectives later searched a storage unit that had Kime’s belongings from the trip. They found documents of Kime’s, including handwritten rap lyrics with a verse that read, “We bringin the heat, so clear the streets, hate to see a baby catch a bullet with his teeth … .”
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