The National Football League has hired experts to probe whether its players are flashing gang signals as part of their post-play celebrations.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the league would have the experts study game films to confirm or deny suspicions that players were using gestures connected to some of the most notorious criminal gangs in the US.
“There have been some suspected things we’ve seen,” Milt Ahlerich, the league’s vice president of security, told the Times. “When we see it, we quietly jump on it immediately, directly with the team and the player or employee involved to cease and desist. Period.”
The report said that the NFL has warned players about the influence of gangs and other forms of organized crime, but their concerns have become more prevalent since former Denver Broncos corner-back Darrent Williams was killed last year in an incident involving known gang members.
The NFL’s actions come two months after Boston Celtics swing-man Paul Pierce was fined US$25,000 for what the league deemed “menacing gestures” toward the Atlanta Hawks’ bench.
Pierce, for his part, said that it was not a gang sign but a gesture of solidarity with his teammates — something that the reigning NBA champions had been doing all season. The NFL was not as sure.
“We were always suspicious that [gang-related hand signals] might be happening,” said Mike Pereira, the NFL’s vice president of officiating. “But the Paul Pierce thing is what brought it to light.”
As a result, the Times said the NFL has made gang signs a point of emphasis this season, but the league will not force its referees to determine what is gang-related.
That will be left up to local and national authorities, who will not only examine game tape but will be tapped as resources for education on the topic.
A native of a predominately black and drug-plagued south Los Angeles neighborhood, former NFL defensive end Marcellus Wiley made it clear why the NFL needs to make sure all menacing gestures stay out.
“Where I’m from, [an athlete is] not the one that wants to throw up a gang sign if you’re in that neighborhood,” Wiley said in the report. “Now, in front of millions of people on TV in the middle of the 50-yard line, who’s going to attack you? Who’s going to do something to you? But you do that on [Los Angeles streets] Slauson and Crenshaw and see what happens.”
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