Cleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins tearfully defended his wearing a “Justice for Tamir Rice” shirt a day after he was blasted by Cleveland police union president Jeff Follmer.
Follmer called Hawkins’ shirt “pathetic” and said Hawkins should stick to playing football. On Monday Hawkins gave a deep an insightful reply.
“My wearing of the T-shirt wasn’t a stance against every police officer or every police department,” Hawkins said. “My wearing of the T-shirt was a stance against wrong individuals doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason to innocent people.”
“If I was to run away from what I felt in my soul was the right thing to do, that would make me a coward and I couldn’t live with that,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins said he thought about his 2-year-old son someday suffering the same fate as Rice.
“That little boy is my world,” Hawkins said, choking up. “My number one reason for wearing the T-shirt was the thought of what happened to Tamir Rice happening to my little Austin. And that scares the living hell out of me.”
Hawkins said he grew up respecting police, but was also taught some officers could be bad.
“My mom also taught me just as there are good police officers, there are some not-so-good police officers who assume the worst of me without knowing anything about me for reasons I can’t control,” Hawkins said.
Fullmer ripped Hawkins again on Monday, citing the wide receivers lack of information about the case as his reasoning for why Hawkins should mind his business.
“What he doesn’t talk about is that our officers were in a situation because of another male’s actions, who tragically turned out to be 12,” Follmer said. “He doesn’t talk about the fact that he didn’t respond to our officer’s commands and tried to pull the gun from his waistband.”
Rice, 12, was fatally shot on Nov. 22 by rookie Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann who fired up Rice immediately after pulling up on him to investigate a complain.
Rice turned out to be carrying an airsoft pellet gun.