On Sunday, as you’ve heard, five players for the St. Louis Rams took the field giving a “hands up don’t shoot” gesture, a sign of support for Ferguson protesters. Almost immediately, The St. Louis Police Officers Association announced that it was “profoundly disappointed” with the gesture, calling it “tasteless, offensive and inflammatory.” They also called for “the players involved to be disciplined and for the Rams and the NFL to deliver a very public apology.”
Let’s unpack this for a second. The St. Louis Police Officers Association, an organization which is not currently enjoying record levels of popularity, is calling for five men to be punished because they were giving the universal sign for surrender. What’s more, they responded to the surrender sign in a matter of minutes. The protesters, in part, are outraged because St. Louis Police allowed Michael Brown’s body to sit in the middle of a street for four hours. Maybe not the best optics? Maybe not the battle the police want to be fighting right now?
But then it gets worse. Yesterday, St. Louis Police Chief Jon Belmar sent an e-mail to his staff saying that Rams COO Kevin Demoff called him to apologize “on behalf of the Rams for the ‘Hands Up’ gesture that some players took the field with yesterday,” and that Demoff “clearly regretted that any members of the Ram’s organization would act in a way that minimized the outstanding work that police officers and departments carry out each and every day.” Demoff responded to this news by saying he did not apologize for the players’ actions, and that Belmar was mischaracterizing the call. The Saint Louis County Police, like any sensible organization, then took the fight to Facebook:
This is not the elaborate display of contrition that Belmar related to his staff. In fact, to me, it sounds like a classic non-apology on Demoff’s part. And even a non-apology is a generous display from the Rams; for the police to throw a 24-hour shit-fit over a wordless show of solidarity (again, employing the universal sign of surrender as the sole means of protest) is a bit much, especially for an organization with, presumably, more important issues to address at the moment. The St. Louis County Police was the butt of a lot of jokes on social media, and so they naturally decided that the appropriate way to respond was by tweeting out a definition:
Apology: “expression of regret for not being able to do something”
@kdemoff: “I regretted any offense their officers may have taken.”
— St. Louis County PD (@stlcountypd) December 2, 2014
Oooo, the dictionary. Impressive stuff. Truly, the St. Louis County Police Department is an institution that demands your respect. And if you don’t give them your respect, they’ll throw a hissy all over the internet like a pissed-off teenager.