Five St. Louis Rams players have created quite a stir since coming out on the field with their arms raised in a "hands up, don't shoot" fashion that Mike Brown supporters have flashed for months. While the police have already expressed their anger with the actions, former NFL coach Mike Ditka says he is embarrassed by the Mike Brown tribute, calling it "hands-up crap."
While speaking with the Chicago Sun-Times about the players' pre-game actions, Ditka insensitively offered up his take on the way things are going in Ferguson.
It's a shame this thing has come to this. The shame of it is, I'm not sure they care about Michael Brown or anything else. This was a reason to protest and to go out and loot. Is this the way to celebrate the memory of Michael Brown? Is this an excuse to be lawless? Somebody has to tell me that. I don't understand it. I understand what the Rams' take on this was. I'm embarrassed for the players more than anything. They want to take a political stand on this? Well, there are a lot of other things that have happened in our society that people have not stood up and disagreed about.
Ditka admits that he doesn't know exactly what happened on the tragic day the 18-year-old lost his life in the town outside of St. Louis but his clearly in favor of the actions taken by officer Darren Wilson.
I wasn't in Ferguson. I don't know exactly what happened. But I know one thing: If we dismantle and limit the power of our policemen any more than we have already, then we're going to have a lot of problems in this country.
What do you do if someone pulls a gun on you or is robbing a store and you stop them? I don't want to hear about this hands-up crap. That's not what happened. I don't know exactly what did happen, but I know that's not what happened. This policeman's life is ruined. Why? Because we have to break somebody down. Because we have to even out the game. I don't know. I don't get it. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.
Ditka most certainly wouldn't be proud of the actions taken by protestors back in October. As reported by the St. Louis American, about 50 people disrupted the St. Louis Symphony's performance of Brahms Requiem, singing "Justice for Mike Brown." The disruption came just after intermission.
The demonstrators sat as audience members sprinkled throughout the theater and in the balcony. They each rose up individually and joined in the singing as white banners with black spray-painted letters reading, "Requiem for Mike Brown 1996–2014" and "Racism lives here," with an arrow pointed to a picture of the St. Louis Arch were dropped from the balcony.
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