In response to the police-involved shooting of Kenosha man Jacob Blake in August, the Green Bay Packers have decided to donate over $750,000 towards the purchase of body cams for the Green Bay Police Department.
In a quote to the Washington Post, Packers CEO Mark Murphy referenced the social justice activism of former 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick and said the decision to make the donation boiled down to where the team could make an impact.
“What are the areas where you can make an impact?” Murphy told the Post. “The nice thing about the body cams is, there’s pretty much a consensus these are good things to have. The only people against it are bad cops and criminals.
“These have been issues for years. Obviously, it came to a head a couple years ago with Colin Kaepernick and the protest. We’ve always been very supportive of our players. At least in my mind, for us, the Jacob Blake shooting happened right in our backyard. To me, it was kind of an inflection point. We can’t just raise these issues. We can’t just make people aware of them. We need to move beyond that. We’re in a very privileged position as an organization where we can impact help change. We have a responsibility to do that.”
The City of Green Bay attempted to purchase body cams for their officers years ago, according to Police Chief Andrew Smith, but couldn’t because they were too expensive.
According to the Post:
The Packers provided $757,000 for the purchase of public safety technology company Axon’s package, which includes body cameras, training and a video system that allows officers to review their performance with supervisors, the team said in a news release. The total cost is $3.6 million. The city of Green Bay will pay $1.95 million after the Packers’ financial support and discounts related to the Packers’ involvement, including a promotional deal.
The Green Bay Police Department will be equipped with “190 Axon Body 3 cameras, 45 Axon Fleet 2 in-car cameras, and 150 TASER 7 devices as part of a five-year subscription to the Officer Safety Plan 7+,” Axon announced in a press release.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.