Roger Goodell issues statement on police brutality, racial injustice; Twitter blinks in Colin Kaepernick

Tom Gatto

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Roger Goodell issues statement on police brutality, racial injustice; Twitter blinks in Colin Kaepernick image

The NFL got instant feedback — and lots of it — Saturday after commissioner Roger Goodell commented on the most recent set of publicized police killings in the United States.

Not surprisingly, the league wound up with heavy doses of Colin Kaepernick in its mentions, with many of the reactions in the vein of "You could have led the fight against police brutality and racial injustice four years ago, but instead you worked against peaceful protesters like Kaepernick."

First, Goodell's statement, which referenced the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery: 

Followed by the Kaepernick responses:

And so on.

Kaepernick, who remains a free agent, voiced support this week for the violent protests over Floyd's death at the knee of former police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis.

MORE: Eric Reid calls out VP Mike Pence for tweet about protests

"When civility leads to death, revolting is the only logical reaction," Kaepernick wrote on social media. "The cries for peace will rain down, and when they do, they will land on deaf ears, because your violence has brought this resistance.

"We have the right to fight back! Rest in power George Floyd."

Violent demonstrations had spread across the country through Saturday.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.