{"id":249,"date":"2017-08-21T13:38:20","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T17:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2017\/?page_id=249"},"modified":"2017-08-21T13:38:50","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T17:38:50","slug":"249-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2017\/249-2\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Police Officers Rally in Support of Colin Kaepernick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By\u00a0<\/strong><strong>VIVIAN WANG<\/strong>AUG. 19, 2017\u00a0 New York Times<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of current and retired officers from the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/reference\/timestopics\/organizations\/n\/new_york_city_police_department\/index.html?inline=nyt-org\">New York Police Department<\/a>\u00a0rallied on Saturday morning in support of Colin Kaepernick, the former\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/news\/sports\/profootball\/nationalfootballleague\/sanfrancisco49ers\/index.html?inline=nyt-org\">San Francisco 49ers<\/a>\u00a0player lionized and reviled for refusing to stand during the national anthem.<\/p>\n<p>The gathering in Brooklyn Bridge Park was organized by Sgt. Edwin Raymond and attended by about 80 officers who wore black T-shirts emblazoned with \u201c#IMWITHKAP.\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0070666\/\">Frank Serpico<\/a>, a former officer who exposed corruption in the New York Police Department in the 1970s, attended.<\/p>\n<p>Speakers, including City Councilman\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/district-45\/\">Jumaane D. Williams<\/a>, Democrat of Brooklyn, linked the backlash against Kaepernick\u2019s gesture \u2014 no team has signed the quarterback for this season \u2014 to the violence last weekend during a white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Va., and more generally to issues of police accountability.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/K\/KaepCo00.htm\">Kaepernick, 29<\/a>, stopped standing for the anthem last season, saying he was protesting violence against minorities, particularly by the police.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs members of law enforcement, we can confirm that the issues he is saying exist in policing, and throughout the criminal justice system, indeed exist,\u201d Sergeant Raymond said of Kaepernick. In 2015, he joined 11 other officers in filing a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/21\/magazine\/a-black-police-officers-fight-against-the-nypd.html\">class-action lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the Police Department for policing practices they said discriminated against minority communities.<\/p>\n<p>The rally coincided with a wave of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/08\/18\/us\/demonstration-race-free-speech-boston-charlottesville.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=photo-spot-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news\">mostly peaceful demonstrations<\/a>\u00a0in Boston and other cities on Saturday, in which protesters addressed white supremacy, Confederate statues and free speech.<\/p>\n<p>Sergeant Raymond said in an interview later on Saturday that he had been planning the rally before the clashes in Charlottesville. But the violence made especially clear the need to address racism in the United States, he said. That the rally was being held by police officers would send a loud message, Sergeant Raymond said, because a frequent criticism of Kaepernick has been that his protest was an affront to law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey said he disrespected law enforcement,\u201d Sergeant Raymond said. \u201cWell, I\u2019m law enforcement, and he didn\u2019t disrespect me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the rally, Williams praised the officers for risking their lives to protect the public. He drew ire last year when he\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2016\/09\/14\/politics\/jumaane-williams-protest-pledge-of-allegiance-colin-kaepernick\/index.html\">refused to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance\u00a0<\/a>during City Council meetings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople use the terms \u2018antipolice,\u2019 \u2018unpatriotic,\u2019 to scare people from stepping forward,\u201d he said later in an interview. \u201cIt takes courage to say, \u2018I\u2019m going to do it anyway, because it\u2019s what\u2019s right.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0VIVIAN WANGAUG. 19, 2017\u00a0 New York Times Dozens of current and retired officers from the\u00a0New York Police Department\u00a0rallied on Saturday morning in support of Colin Kaepernick, the former\u00a0San Francisco 49ers\u00a0player lionized and reviled for refusing to stand during the national anthem. The gathering in Brooklyn Bridge Park was organized by Sgt. Edwin Raymond and attended [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-249","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/249\/revisions\/253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}