It turns out not everyone in professional sports is anti-police.
As with his colleague Charles Barkley, TNT basketball commentator Shaquille O’Neal drew the ire of the left after he made comments supportive of the police in the Breonna Taylor case.
During his Thursday broadcast, O’Neal began his comments pointing out that the Louisville, Kentucky, police officers involved in the Breonna Taylor case could not be legally charged with “murder.”
O’Neal also seemed sympathetic with the police officers who fired back after being fired upon first by Taylor’s boyfriend,
“You have to get a warrant signed, and some states do allow no-knock warrants,” O’Neal said during the NBA ON TNT broadcast. “And everyone was asking for murder charges. When you talk about murder, you have to show intent. A homicide occurred, and we’re sorry a homicide occurred. When you have a warrant signed by the judge, you are doing your job, and I would imagine that you would fire back.”
O’Neal also agreed with co-host Charles Barkley that “lumping in” the Taylor shooting with other cases such as George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery is not the proper way to look at Taylor’s case.
UNSPECIFIED - MAY 16: In this screengrab, Shaquille O'Neal speaks during Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020 on May 16, 2020. (Photo by Getty Images/Getty Images for EIF & XQ)