Throughout the summer, protesters have taken to the streets in cities across the nation to demand social justice and police reform in the wake of George Floyd’s death by police. NBA players and the league as a whole have taken front and center in the Black Lives Matter movement to use their influence and their platform to enact change.
Teams, coaches, and other league personnel have joined together in kneeling during the national anthem prior to the games in Orlando, and many have used their media availability to speak out on various causes, such as justice for Breonna Taylor or the voting rights initiative that LeBron is spearheading.
On Wednesday night, LeBron took a moment to speak about a recent video involving Colorado police officers, who detained a Black family under wrongful suspicion of a stolen vehicle, handcuffing the woman and her young daughters and nieces and forcing them to lay flat on the concrete despite pulling over an SUV when the stolen vehicle was a motorcycle. LeBron called the incident “hurtful and disgraceful,” and explained the exasperation of the Black community to seeing yet another example of discrimination by police.
Lakers’ LeBron James on video of family pulled over in Aurora, CO, and made to lay face down by police: “Hurtful and disgraceful…. We just want better. As a Black community, we’re not asking for a lot for the s—- we went through the last 400 years.” pic.twitter.com/mZzhlyAlvl
— Ben Golliver (@BenGolliver) August 6, 2020
Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry also commented on the video earlier in the day, questioning the type of training protocols that would lead to police treating citizens this way and advocating for major changes in how officers approach these types of interactions.
On a question by @MarcJSpears, Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry says he was disgusted by a video of a Black family, including young children, being pulled over by Aurora, Colo. police. “If that’s the way we’re training our police officers, then we need to change everything about it.” pic.twitter.com/POxMS8ObDd
— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) August 5, 2020
Aurora police chief Vanessa Wilson has since issued a public apology, saying that it made her “sick to my core,” though it remains unclear what disciplinary action might be taken against the officers in question, given that they were technically following protocols for felony stops. Wilson, who had been appointed as the city’s full-time chief on the same day as the incident, did, however, promise major changes in bias and sensitivity training in her department moving forward.
