Bobby Wagner, Russell Wilson, Pete Carroll, Seahawks meet on ‘painful’ Breonna Taylor case
Bobby Wagner and his Seahawks teammates were coming off the practice field from a morning walk-through when the news broke.
It became the talk of the locker room.
Few Seahawks were surprised. They had assumed a grand jury in Kentucky would do what it did: decide not to charge any of the police officers who shot Breonna Taylor in her Louisville home this spring with murder.
After all, 37 of the 53 Seahawks on the active roster and all eight players on injured reserve are Black men.
“My initial thoughts is: I can’t really say I’m surprised,” Wagner said.
He was echoing an unfortunate belief and reality for many Americans this week.
“I think there was a lot of hope that they were going to do the right thing,” the All-Pro linebacker said. “But at the end of the day, given how everything’s happened, historically, I can’t say that I’m too surprised.
“It’s unfortunate. I feel, obviously, a lot of anger. But we have to try to figure out different ways to get what we want. We can’t put it in anybody else’s hands to make the right decisions, because historically they have shown they will not do that.”
Pete Carroll knows his players are thinking and talking about it. That’s why the coach who has been leaning in with his Seahawks on the issues of racial inequality and police brutality since the start of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2016 was having at least one team meeting to discuss the Taylor verdict this week.
The players and coaches were to meet following practice Thursday.
Just as they did this spring into summer after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, of Manny Ellis in Tacoma, of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.
“It’s pretty tough on all of us, obviously, to see nothing has changed,” quarterback Russell Wilson said Thursday.
“It’s definitely painful (to see).”
Carroll made the decision Wednesday to have his players meet to discuss the decision in Taylor’s case.
“It will be a topic ... to make sure we’re addressing whatever the questions are, whatever we need to do to get through it,” Carroll said.
“It warrants the attention, I think. We can all come to a good understanding of how everybody should evaluate it. I’m open for guys evaluating it their own way, seeing what they see. But that’s another difficult kind of assessment firsthand, because we want to see more action.”
For Carroll and his Seahawks, their aim remains the same it’s been for years, and especially in our nation’s tumultuous 2020.
“We want to see things taken to a new level of understanding and awareness and all that in handling cases such as this,” Carroll said. “So, we’ll see.
“We definitely will get after it here the next couple days. I need to know more about it before I can.”
Wilson began this season with Taylor’s name on the back of his helmet.
Why?
“I have a daughter. I have a beautiful 3-year-old daughter,” Seattle’s franchise quarterback said, thinking of his and his wife’s girl Sienna. “And when I think about everything that has happened in our country, it has been an emotional time. An emotional time where there is a lot of hate in the world a lot of disappointing things that are happening.
“And when I think about Breonna, I think about somebody who seemed to be a gracious person from what we hear and what we read—but also somebody who was just trying to be at home.”
Of Wednesday’s decision by Kentucky prosecutors, Wilson said Thursday: “It’s devastating that a young woman, a young Black woman, just hanging out in her own house to be, in my opinion, murdered—really for no reason at all.”
He said there is no excuse, “at all, for nobody to be charged for it.”
Wilson says part of the solution is what the Seahawks canceled practice for last month to register every player to do in November.
Vote.
“Something’s got to change,” Wilson said. “We have to do our part to make sure everybody’s voting, Black and white. ...
“We need to make a change, with the system of racism.”
Wagner wore the name of another Black person killed by police. He had Ellis’ name on the back of his helmet while playing in Seattle’s win over New England last weekend. Ellis died in handcuffs while being restrained by Tacoma police officers on March 3. In June, a Pierce County medical examiner determined Ellis died as a result of the police’s restraint of him.
“Obviously, if you read about it, it’s a very unfortunate situation,” Wagner said as the reason he wanted to honor Ellis.
He had to ask the NFL for permission, because Ellis was not like Taylor, Floyd, Black Lives Matter, End Racism or other approved names or messages for the back of helmets.
“Just another story, unfortunately, of someone who should be alive,” Wagner said.
“There’s multiple names that I wanted to put. That was the first one that they approved.
“Hopefully, we shed light on these situations. But it’s getting tough, too, because we are shedding light and we’re asking for justice—and it’s not necessarily being served.
“We’ve just got to keep fighting.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2020 at 1:50 PM.
