Falcons minority owner Warrick Dunn, a native of Baton Rouge, is struggling emotionally with the police shootings in his former home town on Sunday.
Dunn’s mother, a Baton Rouge police officer, was shot and killed when he was an 18-year-old senior in high school.
Dunn was aware of the shootings from Sunday morning in Baton Rouge where three officers and one suspect have been declared dead. Police-community relations in Baton Rouge have been especially tense since the killing of 37-year-old Alton Sterling, a black man killed by white officers earlier this month after a scuffle at a convenience store.
Dunn, 41, released a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sunday evening, expressing his feelings. He felt compelled to address the situation.
“My heart breaks for the families and law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge who have lost loved ones,” Dunn said in the statement. “I have been in similar shoes - it will changed their lives and leave them reeling with questions for years to come.
“It is a shame. So many officers who are out there on the front lines have tremendous heart for what they do. These acts of violence don’t solve anything and if my voice can add to the movement to stop it - then I’d consider that a good thing.
“I struggle emotionally to understand why and how police officers are being targeted in the way they are.”
After high school, Dunn went on to star at Florida State and played in the NFL from 1997 to 2008. He played for Tampa Bay from 1997-2001 before playing six seasons with the Falcons. He finished in career with Tampa Bay in 2008.
Since his retirement, Dunn has worked to make a difference in the lives of others by giving them the opportunity to secure home ownership, a program he started when he was still playing in the NFL.
Living in east Atlanta and working through his nonprofit, Warrick Dunn Charities, he has provided more than 140 homes to a single mothers.
Dunn’s mother, Betty Smothers, was gunned down in 1993 when she was escorting a grocer to make a deposit at a bank.
Her murderer, Kevan Brumfield, was sentenced to be executed in Louisiana, but still sits on death row — though a recent report by The Times-Picayune said that “a Supreme Court ruling that was issued could result in Kevan Brumfield avoiding the death penalty and being declared mentally disabled. A 2002 Supreme Court ruling declared that it is unconstitutional to execute convicted felons who have been determined by the court to be ‘mentally retarded.’”
The timing of the shootings is bad for Dunn. Brumfield is scheduled to be re-sentenced soon.
“Next week, I will attend trial for a re-sentencing hearing for my mother’s murder which happened 23 years ago,” Dunn said. “I hate to even think of what this entire ordeal will cost our community, but I know - it is too much. And even though my Mother lost her life all those years ago, the men who were tried by a jury of their peers have been kept alive by a prison system that has seen to their every need. Something that was denied to my Mother.”
Back in 2008, Dunn made a visit to see Brumfield in prison. Brumfield told Dunn he didn’t kill his mother and in his memoir, “Running for My Life,” Dunn wrote, “Finally, after listening to Brumfield for a while longer, I decided I just wanted to tell him about what that night did to me and how that night changed my life. I wanted him to know that I used to play football with passion and emotion. I still play with the passion for the game, but I no longer play the game with emotion because the night Mom was murdered took all the emotion from me.’’
Dunn hopes that the law enforcement and the community can find some common ground in Baton Rouge.
“I support law enforcement,” Dunn said. “I also support the community of Baton Rouge because they were there for me and my family. If I could have any effect, I’d ask the community to stop the violence, to cool down and to come together to figure this out.
“There is nothing we can’t do, but we have to work together to make something positive come from yet another tragedy in my home town.”
Dunn does his community work to honor his mother.
“I am just thankful I have been able to do something in my mother’s memory that makes a difference,” Dunn said. “That is how I always want to remember her.’’
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