Georgetown Basketball Team Wears 'I Can't Breathe' Shirts During National Anthem

Many people were shocked when Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose wore an “I Can’t Breathe” t-shirt during the warmup before the Dec. 5 game. The phrase is a reference to Eric Garner, a New York CIty man killed during an arrest in July. A grand jury decided last week to not charge the officer involved.

The Georgetown University Hoyas Men’s Basketball team staged a similar statement on the court before a game on Wednesday.

During the national anthem, every player stood across the court wearing a shirt quoting Garner’s final words in bold white letters, according to NBC Washington.

“We’ve been as a group talking about this for a while,” Head Coach John Thompson III said following the game. “I thought it was important, before you jump out there, that they understand and we talk about and have several conversations about what’s going on, what does it mean, and why do you want to wear this shirt.”

During an arrest on July 17, Officer Daniel Pantaleo put Garner into a banned chokehold and he passed away afterwards. The grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo Dec. 3. The news came shortly after a grand jury decided not to indict Officer Darren Wilson Nov. 24 in the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Miss.

“We didn’t wear the shirts to say that the cops were wrong or the system was wrong,” senior center player Joshua Smith said. “We just wore the shirts just to show our condolences to the family because no matter how you look at it, we don’t know who was right or wrong, but they still lost somebody. And they won’t get that person back.’’

Photo Credit: @Georgetown, @fox5melanie, @pking2011 Twitter

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