During Sunday’s pre-game, as the Ram’s offense was introduced, the TE Jared Cook and four receivers, Kenny Britt, Stedman Bailey, Chris Givens and Tavon Austin displayed something symbolic as they walked out of the tunnel onto the field.
As the five players made it out of the tunnel onto the field, the players stopped for a few seconds and they raised their hands to show their support regarding the Michael Brown / Ferguson shooting. The players held their hands up as to say, I’m unharmed and surrendering. The symbolic method that has been seen as people have protested World Wide since the verdict of the Grand Jury came out.
Not everyone appreciated the players actions. The St. Louis Police Officers Association (SLPOA) is asking that the five players not only publicly apologize, but that the NFL take a stand and penalize them as well.
The SLPOA made a statement too, they had to say… “I know that there are those that will say that these players are simply exercising their First Amendment rights. Well, I’ve got news for people who think that way; Cops have First Amendment rights too, and we plan to exercise ours. I’d remind the NFL and their players that it is not the violent thugs burning down buildings that buy their advertiser’s products. It’s cops and the good people of St. Louis and other NFL towns that do. Somebody needs to throw a flag on this play. If it’s not the NFL and the Rams, then it’ll be cops and their supporters.”
In their statement they sound like they have some strong words thrown at the NFL players and the league itself, but those words sounded like threats too.
The NFL’s VP of communications, Brian McCarthy, had a response for the SLPOA on Monday too, “We respect and understand the concerns of all individuals who have expressed views on this tragic situation.”
Later in interviews a couple of the players made comments regarding their actions.
One of the Rams’ players involved, Jared Cook had a positive response on the matter. Cook said, “We kind of came collectively together and decided we wanted to do something. We haven’t been able to go down to Ferguson to do anything because we have been busy. Secondly, it’s kind of dangerous down there and none of us want to get caught up in anything. So we wanted to come out and show our respect to the protest and the people who have doing a heck of a job around the world. My sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law… all of them went this past week for Thanksgiving. They came back and reported to me about things they saw and what was going on around there. Definitely, I will be making a trip to Ferguson.”
The other player who had a comment, Kenny Britt, also had something positive to say on the matter.
Britt said that he and the other guys were “not taking sides” with their display.
“We wanted to show that we are organized for a great and something positive comes out of it. That’s what we hope we can make happen. That’s our community. We wanted to let the community know that we support the community.”
Via:espn.com
