On Sunday, five players from the St. Louis Rams showed solidarity and support for Michael Brown and the Ferguson protestors as they emerged from the tunnel and took the field doing the “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture. It’s the pose that has been the stance of the Ferguson protests as many people say Brown was surrendering when he was shot dead by police officer Darren Wilson. On the other side people believe that account is untrue and that Brown did not have his hands up, they say he instead was charging at Wilson, not surrendering. Now the St. Louis police demands punishment for Rams who participated saying they essentially called the exonerated police officer a murderer…
via Fox News:
A St. Louis police officers’ group called on the NFL to punish five Rams players who stood with their hands raised before trotting onto the field for pregame introductions Sunday.
The St. Louis Police Officers’ Association said it was “profoundly disappointed” with what it called a “display that police officers around the nation found tasteless, offensive and inflammatory.” It called for the players involved to be disciplined and for both the league and team to issue a “very public apology.”
SLPOA Business Manager Jeff Roorda was quoted in a statement released by the organization as saying ” All week long, the Rams and the NFL were on the phone with the St. Louis Police Department asking for assurances that the players and the fans would be kept safe from the violent protesters who had rioted, looted, and burned buildings in Ferguson … then, as the players and their fans sit safely in their dome under the watchful protection of hundreds of St. Louis’s finest, they take to the turf to call a now-exonerated officer a murderer, that is way out-of-bounds, to put it in football parlance.”
“I’d remind the NFL and their players that it is not the violent thugs burning down buildings that buy their advertiser’s products,” Roorda added. “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.”
