The NFL’s Players Coalition, made up of league stars advocating for social justice and racial equality, released a public service announcement on Wednesday highlighting police brutality.
The video brings awareness to the October 2010 fatal shooting of 20-year-old Danroy “DJ” Henry, who was a student athlete at Pace University before he was killed by a police officer outside a New York bar, ABC News reports.
The announcement, narrated by Henry’s parents, shows footage of their late son during his childhood and throughout his life.
At the end of the roughly 2½-minute video, his mother says, “I don’t want to assume that all police officers are bad, and I don’t want people to assume that all young black men are bad. I miss him tremendously.”
The PSA is one of a series of steps the coalition, made up of NFL players, has taken in the past two years in an effort to push for criminal justice reform.{mosads}
“We have a responsibility to use our platforms to unite people and foster positive change in our communities, but we can’t achieve that goal without education,” Players Coalition co-founder and Philadelphia Eagles player Malcolm Jenkins told ABC News in a statement. “We want this PSA to generate productive dialogue between people of all backgrounds, so we can start to bridge the communication gap and work together to end these injustices.”
Police brutality is one of the issues that prompted former NFL player and activist Colin Kaepernick to kneel during the national anthem in 2016, providing the impetus for a wave of other athletes and figures to do the same in solidarity.
Kaepernick has not had a job in the league since the end of that season, but three current players have kept taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem this season, ABC News reports.