Adebayo on recent police shootings: ‘It’s sickening’
For nearly one full year, Bam Adebayo has ended every one of his interviews by saying, “Black Lives Matter, people.”
The Miami Heat’s star center has also worn similar messages on his chest, arriving to games in recent months with shirts and sweaters that include statements like “Support Black Colleges and “It’s The Black History For
Before the Heat played in Minnesota on Friday, Bam Adebayo spoke about the impact of current events, such as the recent police shooting near Minneapolis.
Me.” Adebayo also dedicated an entire interview last July to calling for justice for Breonna Taylor.
With the Heat in Minnesota during a turbulent time in the state after the recent police shooting and death of Daunte Wright just outside Minneapolis, the 23-year-old Adebayo again used his platform to make his voice heard.
“Obviously, it’s crazy that this keeps happening. It’s not an accident,” Adebayo said before the Heat’s Friday night game against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Target Center. “How many times is it going to be where it’s, ‘Oh, it was an accident? Oh, we thought he had a Taser.’ It’s like the boy who cried wolf. You’re hearing the same thing, but there’s not a different outcome to it. So it’s disappointing. We’re losing another Black brother to police brutality. It’s sickening for all of us.”
Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, died Sunday when now-former Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter shot him during a traffic stop. The also now-former Brooklyn Center police chief said
Potter intended to use her Taser on Wright, but mistakenly fired her handgun instead.
Potter was charged with second-degree manslaughter this week following nights of protests over the killing of Wright.
All the while, just miles away in Minneapolis, the murder trial progresses for the ex-officer charged with killing George Floyd last May. Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis policeman who prosecutors say knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, killed the unarmed Black man who was handcuffed and pinned to the pavement on May 25, 2020.
“You can just tell a lot of Black people who live in