Cleveland Browns football player Isaiah Crowell posted and then later deleted an image from his Instagram account showing a hooded man slitting the throat of a police office in a manner reminiscent of beheadings carried out by the Islamic State. Crowell will keep his job with the NFL after issuing apologies.
Crowell posted the image after news was reported of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, and Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana being fatally shot by police, but before the five police officers were killed in Dallas last Thursday.
Crowell then released a written apology through the Browns which was initially deemed insincere by the Cleveland police union who threatened to boycott working Browns games, and he later posted a video apology on his Facebook account and pledged to donate his first game check of $35,000 from his $1.54 million contract to a police union foundation, prompting the president of the union Steve Loomis to state “I’m glad we didn’t have to go the route of boycotting Browns games. We would not have enjoyed that. We wanted to give Isaiah the opportunity to make things right, and he did.” Loomis also said he’d love to work with Crowell in the future to help solve some of the city’s problems.
Also see this Cleveland.com article and CBS Local article about the matter.