Derrick Rose
When Derrick Rose made headlines for wearing the “I Can’t Breathe” tee shirt during warm-ups last year, he was largely applauded by the press. Two years later, he was being investigated for an alleged rape, and the detective assigned to his case was found dead of an apparent suicide in the LA metro area.
I’m not saying Rose or his case had anything to do with the death of Det. Nadine Hernandez. What I am saying is this. Per one Badge of Life report, a police officer commits suicide every 81 hours in the US. Between ’09 and ’12 the annual number ranged from 108-143 officers who took their own life and another thousand officers suffering from PTSD for every suicide tallied annually. Why not wear a tee shirt to raise awareness for this tragic pattern, Mr. Rose?
Conversely, per the Washington Post database for officer involved shootings, 963 people were shot and killed by police in 2016. Of that number, 233 were black – and of that number, only 17 were black and unarmed. Of the total number, 465 were white. 22 of those whites were unarmed. While a cop commits suicide every 81 hours in this country, the same math tells us an unarmed black male is killed by the police every 516 hours. This narrative of black genocide at the hands of police doesn’t add up – yet the police suicide epidemic narrative doesn’t exist.
While Rose has personal experience in dealing with a police officer who committed suicide, I don’t know whether he’s had personal experience with the police killing an unarmed acquaintance of his. Either way, if the outpouring of public grandstanding were done in accordance with which issue was causing more loss of life, more orphan children, and more distraught family members looking for answers – perhaps Rose would be wearing an “I Can’t Live” tee shirt to raise awareness for the approximately 130 cops who take their own lives each year.
Isaiah Crowell
In one of the more extreme displays of animosity against police officers on this list. The Cleveland Browns RB made headlines for posting an image to Instagram of a white police officer’s throat gushing with blood as a black clad killer donning the Egyptian pennant of Ankh stands behind him covering his mouth as he slices away. Of course, the pennant around the killer’s neck has been hijacked by black supremacist groups over the years.
The picture Crowell chose to share mimics the infamous ISIS still of “Jihadi John” beheading of James Foley back in 2014. The caption he chose to type said this:
“Mood: They give polices all types of weapons and they choose to kill us… #Weak”
Not surprisingly, the IG post caused quite a controversy for the Browns organization, who had no choice but to condemn it. In the fallout, Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association President Stephen Loomis threatened to pull police from providing security at Browns home games if Crowell didn’t “make it right.” I’d have gone a step further and demanded they let him go from the team if they wanted to retain the services of Cleveland PD instead.
So where do we stand today with this mess? The double standard is striking. While the NFL downplayed the incident and accepted Crowell’s apology for an “inappropriate and insensitive” social media post, I wonder if they sent him to sensitivity training like they did Riley Cooper for drunkenly barking out a racial slur in 2014? Cooper was released the following season – and Crowell? Well, 2017 is set to be a contract year, and it seems the industry is rallying around him to have a breakout performance.
