The Seattle Seahawks are among the NFL teams cancelling their team meetings on Thursday in honor of the George Floyd memorial, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler and later confirmed by Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times.
The memorial is taking place on Thursday, June 4 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin, a police officer who held his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes while Floyd, in handcuffs, cried for help and exclaimed that he could not breathe.
The incident has caused peaceful protests around the country, reigniting the Black Lives Matter movement in a way that has not been seen since Colin Kaepernick first knelt during the national anthem in order to protest police brutality against people of color.
Many Seahawks players and coaches, including Pete Carroll, Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner, have spoken up about the racial injustice in this country, and the way the team has worked together to have open and honest conversations amongst each other.
“I’m grateful we have an organization that understands,” Wagner told Seattle media on Monday. “It’s hard for me to focus on football or focus on anything other than what’s going on. If you looked up from whatever you were doing, you saw what was happening.”
The Seahawks will resume their regular virtual team meetings on Friday, with the aim of getting onto the practice field for training camp sometime in July.
