During a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman addressed Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem before games and talked about the police shootings that have plagued America in recent months and years. During a press conference on Thursday, Sherman’s teammate Doug Baldwin followed his lead and spoke with reporters at length about police shootings and the frustration that he feels when it comes to social injustices.
"This is not an isolated conversation," he said. "This is not isolated just to some specific parts of our country. We see that now. And the advancement of technology has proved that, from the video of Rodney King in 1991 to numerous incidents that we now have visual evidence of today. Now, this is not an indictment of our law enforcement agencies. I just want that to be clear. We know that there’s a select few—a very minute few—of law enforcement who are not abiding by those laws and policies. However, we also know that there are laws and policies that are in place that are not correcting the issue that we have in our society right now."
Baldwin then went on to call for all 50 states to review their police training policies and to make them consistent across the country.
"As an American, a black male, in this country," he said, "I’m suggesting, calling—I’m demanding that all 50 state attorney generals call for a review of their policies and training policies for police and law enforcement to eliminate militaristic cultures while putting a higher emphasis on deescalation tactics and crisis management measures."
Baldwin also talked about how his father is a police officer and has told him about the inconsistencies that exist across the country when it comes to police training.
"My father’s a police officer," he said, "and he’s told me numerous times about his training and how they’ve gone through what they call verbal judo, which is essentially them trying to deescalate the situation. From what I understand, and from what he’s told me and his experience in homeland security, is that that method of training is not consistent throughout the entirety of the United States. And that’s an issue."
Baldwin’s pleas didn’t fall on deaf ears. A short time after his press conference ended, he actually received a response from Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who reached out to Baldwin on Twitter to tell him that he’d like to set up a meeting with him soon:
Baldwin responded to Ferguson:
He also posted the full transcript of his press conference on his social media accounts. You can watch his press conference above and read along with it here:
