I was surprised and pleased when I saw these 5 Rams enter the field on my local news last night ~ but the gesture seems to have hit a nerve with the St. Louis Police Officers Association ~ I see this as another sign of police arrogance, and I'll be plenty pissed off if these players are "disciplined" ~ Sooz

St. Louis police officers’ group demands Rams players be disciplined for ‘hands up, don’t shoot’
Tom Boggioni | 30 Nov 2014 at 22:49 ET


Reacting to five members of the St. Louis Rams coming onto the field for Sunday’s game displaying the ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ gesture, a St. Louis police officers fraternal organization is demanding the team discipline the players, and that the team and league issue a formal apology, reports KSDK.

In a statement released Sunday evening, the St. Louis Police Officers Association condemned the display, calling it “tasteless, offensive and inflammatory.”

Prior to player introductions before Sunday’s game, five players — Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Jared Cook, Chris Givens, and Kenny Britt — came out onto the field first with their hands in the air prior to being joined by their teammates.

Responding to the display, the statement reads, “The St. Louis Police Officers Association is profoundly disappointed with the members of the St. Louis Rams football team who chose to ignore the mountains of evidence released from the St. Louis County Grand Jury this week and engage in a display that police officers around the nation found tasteless, offensive and inflammatory.”

“Five members of the Rams entered the field today exhibiting the “hands-up-don’t-shoot” pose that has been adopted by protestors who accused Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson of murdering Michael Brown. The gesture has become synonymous with assertions that Michael Brown was innocent of any wrongdoing and attempting to surrender peacefully when Wilson, according to some now-discredited witnesses, gunned him down in cold blood.”

While the gesture was first attributed to the shooting death of Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, the display has grown as a symbolic gesture used in protests over multiple shootings of young black men by police officers.

In the statement, SLPOA Business Manager Jeff Roorda is quoted saying, “now that the evidence is in and Officer Wilson’s account has been verified by physical and ballistic evidence as well as eye-witness testimony, which led the grand jury to conclude that no probable cause existed that Wilson engaged in any wrongdoing, it is unthinkable that hometown athletes would so publicly perpetuate a narrative that has been disproven over-and-over again.”

The letter goes on call “.. for the players involved to be disciplined and for the Rams and the NFL to deliver a very public apology. ”

Roorda said he would be reaching out to other police departments around the country, enlisting their aid in pressuring the team and the league.

Roorda warned, “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.”

Although a Ferguson grand jury refused to indict Wilson, he and the Ferguson police department are still being investigated by the Justice Department and may face federal charges.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/st-louis-police-officers-group-demands-rams-players-be-disciplined-for-hands-up-dont-shoot/

I hope other pro-athletes do the same and keep on doing it it.

Me too, oskar ~

Sooz

The ONLY people being inflammatory are the members of the St. Louis Police Officer Association. Methinks they doth protest too much.

Why am I not surprised? ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

Ex-cop behind St. Louis police NFL threat has history of lying, protecting crooked cops
Tom Boggioni | 01 Dec 2014 at 11:16 ET

The former police officer demanding the NFL discipline five St. Louis Rams players over their display of “hand up, don’t shoot” before a game on Sunday has a history of controversy, including being disciplined for lying in police reports as well as sponsoring legislation that would shield the names of police officers from public scrutiny unless charged with a crime.

Sunday night, St. Louis Police Officers Association Business Manager Jeff Roorda was quoted in a statement from the association calling for the five players, Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Jared Cook, Chris Givens, and Kenny Britt, to be disciplined and for the Rams and the NFL to make a public apology.

The SLPOA described the gesture as “tasteless, offensive and inflammatory.”

In the statement, Roorda claimed, “Our officers have been working 12 hour shifts for over a week, they had days off including Thanksgiving cancelled so that they could defend this community from those on the streets that perpetuate this myth that Michael Brown was executed by a brother police officer and 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.”

Roorda, a Democrat who most recently served in the Missouri House of Representatives before running for a seat in the state Senate and losing, was fired from the Arnold, Missouri police department in 2001 for misconduct after having been previously warned in another case where he was found to have lied in a police report.

According to court documents, in 1997 Roorda was reprimanded for attempting “…to try to ‘cover’ for another police officer by filing a report that contained false statements as to what happened during a suspect’s apprehension and arrest. As a result of this false report, all charges against the defendant involved were dropped.” The court notes that Roorda was informed, “If it is ever determined again that you have lied in a police report, you will receive a more severe punishment, up to and including termination.”

Roorda was later terminated for lying about interactions with other police officers after accusing them of threatening and abusing him. Roorda’s charges were disproved by audio tapes of the conversations provided to investigators by Roorda himself.

Following a stint as a police chief of Kimmswick, Roorda was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives where he attempted to amend the state’s Sunshine laws with regard to police activities.

According to MissouriWatchdog.org, Roorda introduced an amendment that would ”prevent the public from obtaining ‘any records and documents pertaining to police shootings … if they contain the name of any officer who did the shooting’.” Under Roorda’s proposal, a police officer’s name would only be entered into the public record if they were charged with a crime. The proposal also extended to the names of police officers who were involved in a shooting, regardless of whether the officer was on duty.

While simultaneously serving in the Missouri House while employed as the business manager for the SLPOA, Roorda pushed back against equipping police officers and cruisers with dash and body cameras, saying, “Instead of the cameras being there to protect the officers, they get disciplined for petty stuff constantly — for violating the uniform code, or rolling through a stop sign for an urgent call, or for not turning the camera on. That’s one of the hottest issues for my guys. They’re tired of the nitpicking, and that’s what the cameras have been used to do.”

Roorda was also revealed to be behind a major fundraiser for Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the police officer who resigned over the weekend.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/ex-cop-behind-st-louis-police-nfl-threat-has-history-of-lying-protecting-crooked-cops/

GOOD!!! ~ Sooz

TPM LIVEWIRE
NFL Won't Punish St. Louis Rams For 'Hands Up, Don't Shoot' Gesture
By Caitlin MacNeal Published December 1, 2014, 12:25 PM EST

The National Football League will not discipline St. Louis Rams players who stood with their arms up before their Sunday game to show support for the Ferguson protesters.

The St. Louis Police Association on Sunday night called on the NFL to punish the five players who entered the stadium with their hands up. The police group said the gesture was "tasteless, offensive and inflammatory."

In a Monday statement to USA Today, the NFL said that no disciplinary action will be taken.

"We respect and understand the concerns of all individuals who have expressed views on this tragic situation," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said.

Rams wide receiver Stedman Bailey said after the game that they did not mean for the pose to be offensive or controversial.

"Violence should stop. There’s a lot of violence going on here in St. Louis. We definitely hear about it all, and we just want it to stop," he said, according to USA Today.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nfl-will-not-punish-rams-hands-up

I don't like the idea of defending the likes of R and I believe free speech so I would be very glad to defend the right of the NFL players to express themselves on an issue; to take such a stand would be easy and I would not incur the displeasure of some of the members of this board. Sigh--to take such a stand would be intellectually dishonest. Had the NFL not established a rule against players making signs such as pointing upward or kneeling after making a Touchdown I do not see much difference between the censorship of one speech from the other

If it were not for the rule against free speech already standing I could almost support the 5 Rams. As it is I can't

Good point, Cannalee ~ but I have a hazy recollection that that rule has been quashed ~ the most recent episode of religious fervor following a big play that I remember was by [I think] a Muslim celebrating after a score ~ we had some posting on it at the time, noting that if Tim Tebow can do it then so can others ~

Sooz

Well if that rule's been quashed then yeah those 5 Ŕam have every right to express themselves without censure