4 Minnesota Police Officers Take A Stance, Walk Out On WNBA Game

LifeOfaReilly10 years ago

Several of Minnesota’s finest walked out of a Minnesota Lynx WNBA game in protest of a stance taken by members of the team.

The Star Tribune reports that four off-duty officers, who were working security at the game, took a stance for their brothers in arms.

Four off-duty Minneapolis police officers working the Minnesota Lynx game at Target Center on Saturday night walked off the job after the players held a news conference denouncing racial profiling, then wore Black Lives Matter pregame warm-up jerseys.

Lt. Bob Kroll, president of the Minneapolis Police Federation, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, praised them for quitting. “I commend them for it,” he said.

Kroll said the four officers also removed themselves from a list of officers working future games. He did not know who the officers were. “Others said they heard about it and they were not going to work Lynx games,” he said.

Asked if other officers will fill in for those who quit, Kroll said, “If [the players] are going to keep their stance, all officers may refuse to work there.”

The three-time WNBA champions wore black T-shirts that read “Change starts with us, justice and accountability” and on the back had Philando Castile’s and Alton Sterling’s names along with “Black Lives Matter” and a Dallas Police Department emblem.

I’m your average white male. The only racial profiling I deal with happens when I step foot on the basketball court and start jab stepping. I don’t blame members of the Lynx for taking a stance in an effort to bring recent events to light. Athletes have every right to use their platform to raise awareness of an issue, as long as it is done constructively and respectfully. Two days after a mass attack on the Dallas Police Department was not the appropriate time.

It has to be mentioned again that they did include a Dallas police emblem on their “Black Lives Matter” shirts. For that, I commend them. But it’s a fine line that wasn’t worth walking to question the character of the very police that are protecting you in that very stadium so soon after the tragic events in Dallas that have all police departments on edge.

Using the term “Black Lives Matter” doesn’t bother me. Yes, I would very much prefer it to read “All Lives Matter,” as that is what the truth really is. No one life is worth more than any other, regardless of the color of your skin. But I understand the root of the Black Lives Matter movement; I just hope it is being used as an underlying “All Lives Matter” stance, which is what I believe the Lynx were doing.

Although I understand what the Lynx were trying to accomplish, as I said, it was just poorly timed. I completely agree with what those four off-duty officers did in response by walking out.

When asked why only four officers were working the Lynx game, Minneapolis Police Federation Bob Kroll dropped this bomb:

They only have four officers working the event because the Lynx have such a pathetic draw.

The man’s got a point. Losing those four officers had to be a brutal blow to the Lynx’s final attendance figure. I bet the Minnesota PD punishes officers by putting them on Lynx security duty. You think a normal shift on patrol is a hard job? Try watching a full WNBA game. It’s actually what is being used to torture the terrorists in place of waterboarding these days. If I wanted to watch 10 people on a court make the extra pass, box out and bank home that mid-range jumper I would go watch a local CYO game.

Black, White, Brown, whatever; we all need to stick together, more than ever, in today’s world.

Black lives matter. Police lives matter. All of our lives matter.

The WNBA does not..

[via The Star Tribune]

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