Colin Kaepernick would be so proud. Kneeling during the National Anthem to show hatred for law enforcement is so 2017 and, let’s face it, it was a confusing message. Some students in Mississippi came up with a more focused way to express this hatred by staging a mock cop killing during the half-time show at a high school football game. Making this even more disgusting, two police officers were recently killed in the town where this took place.
On Friday night Forest Hill High School went to Brookhaven, Miss. for a football game. During the half-time festivities, the Forest Hill band performed and then as part of the show, some students came out on the field dressed in costumes. There were a few students dressed as doctors and nurses and two dressed as police officers. The ones in the medical personnel costumes were armed with fake guns and forced the two cops to the ground where they pretended to shoot them.
As The Clarion-Ledger reports, something else horrible happened in Brookhaven, MS recently:
Patrolman James White, 35, and Cpl. Zach Moak, 31, were killed on Sept. 29. The officers were responding to a report of shots fired at a house.
Funerals for the men were held Wednesday and Thursday.
Moak’s and White’s call numbers were painted on the field at BHS in memory of their fatal shootings, which took place last Saturday morning.
Pretending to kill cops during a football game halftime show is bad, but doing it on a field memorializing dead officers a day after their funeral is inexcusable. But you know what? Here’s the Jackson Public Schools Superintendent trying to excuse this:
JPS Superintendent Errick Greene said the scene was a loose reenactment of the movie “John Q.”
In the film, a father played by Denzel Washington takes a group of hospital patients hostage in order to secure treatment for his son.
And it never occurred to the band director that people in a town where two police officers were killed would take offense at the mock killing of two police officers?
“JPS has a great deal of respect and appreciation for our law enforcement partners. The band’s performance does not depict the values and people in our community and was incredibly insensitive to the students, families, law enforcement officials and the entire Brookhaven community. For this we sincerely apologize to all, and we pledge to do better in the future,” said JPS in a statement.
It’s always good to set the bar incredibly low. It would be impossible to do worse than this, so by default, any halftime show from now on will be better. Maybe next Friday the band can just portray the severe beating of police officers. Or perhaps they could play a high school band version of NWA’s F*ck Tha Police while spelling out the words “DIE PIGS, DIE!”
One bright spot in this otherwise terrible story is that I’m almost certain Nike will donate new uniforms and shoes to the Forest Hill High School football team and band. Hey, they might even get Colin Kaepernick to give the commencement address at next year’s graduation ceremony.
