Colin Kaepernick Is Offering to Pay the Legal Bills of Protestors in Minneapolis
Former NFL star Colin Kaepernick has launched a defense fund to help pay the legal bills of demonstrators who have been arrested in Minneapolis while protesting police brutality in the wake of the killing of 46-year-old George Floyd.
"In fighting for liberation there‘s always retaliation," he wrote on Twitter. "We must protect our Freedom Fighters." The Know Your Rights Legal Initiative, a new arm of Kaepernick's nonprofit Know Your Rights Camp, is working with attorneys in Minneapolis to provide assistance and resources to anybody who needs it.
Kaepernick famously protested police brutality himself in his 2016 season playing as a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, by kneeling during the national anthem at football games. He has since described this peaceful protest, which drew criticism from some corners, as "a culmination of years of thought and experiences, of learning and unlearning." This ultimately brought his professional football career to a premature end, with no NFL teams willing to offer him a contract following the controversy sparked by his protests.
In fighting for liberation there‘s always retaliation. We must protect our Freedom Fighters. We started a legal defense initiative to give legal representation to Freedom Fighters in Minneapolis paid for by @yourrightscamp
For representation or to donate https://t.co/q0pzAObCiG— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) May 29, 2020
Protestors in Minneapolis as well as New York City, Los Angeles and other cities were galvanized after footage leaked online of a police officer pressing on George Floyd's neck, despite Floyd's repeated assertions that he couldn't breathe. The incident was the latest in a longstanding historical pattern of so-called "officer-involved deaths" of black men in the United States.
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