The National Football League is an extremely profitable, and protected monopoly. It shakes down cities to use their resources. They spent money on lawyers, and lying doctors to cover up and deny the damage the game does to players. Many teams have had unpaid cheerleaders for entertainment, and entertainment for big spenders. They have the government consider themselves as a "non-profit" enterprise. The public pays taxes, the NFL and its league of owners not so much...
The business manager of the St. Louis police, Jeff Roorda, became disturbed after a football game on 30 November began with the speech shown in the photograph above:
"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. ... The SLPOA is calling for the players involved to be disciplined and for the Rams and the NFL to deliver a very public apology.... 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."
Roorda is a whiny, hypocritical, bullying jerk. It goes with the territory. Darren Wilson is allowed to kill with impunity, i suppose, Roorda can demand the public punishment of men raising their hands.
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postscriptum 14 December 2014: To-day's Cleveland Browns game, a similar incident. A wide receiver had a shirt with the words, “Justice for Tamir Rice - John Crawford”. Immediate reaction from the outgoing Police Union President, Jeff Follmer, “It's pretty pathetic when athletes think they know the law. They should stick to what they know best on the field. The Cleveland Police protect and serve the Browns stadium and the Browns organization owes us an apology.” A few days ago the U.S. Attorney General made public an investigation on the Cleveland police. Follmer's comment was, “It's disappointing when people take a look back and criticize what we did.”
Criticism is prohibited by the police of the police.
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