Devin McCourty has spent the last several days deep in thought about the shooting of Jacob Blake by police in Wisconsin.
The Patriotsâ safety has watched the video of the Black man being shot seven times in the back by an officer in Kenosha while his three children were in the car.
He has been thinking about other similar recent incidents that have occurred in the United States and has been looking for answers.
But when the 33-year-old McCourty met the media in a video conference Thursday, it was obvious that he is struggling with what is going on.
âIâve felt very hopeless,â said McCourty.
The Patriotsâ captain, who has been with the team since 2010, has been a leader through the years and has done a lot of work in the community.
But the shooting of Blake, who is now paralyzed, last Sunday has shaken McCourty, which came through loud and clear during his nearly 20-minute meeting with the media.
âItâs just been very disheartening just watching things transpire, watching lives still be lost,â said McCourty. âItâs not just police brutality. Itâs just everything we deal with.
âLike today, Iâm going to come here and you guys are going to ask me questions and itâs going to be about my opinion on different things, but I just feel like overall, until people turn on different things and watch it and we all have that same outlook like, âMan, what is going on? This is heartbreaking, this is terrible.â It just doesnât matter. I just felt very hopeless the last couple of days.â
McCourty has been thinking a lot about his children, 3-year-old daughter Londyn and 2-year-old son Brayden.
McCourty recalled having his mother, Phyllis Harrell, offer words of caution when he was growing up and how those same words will now be delivered to his own children.
âLast night I sat there and looked at my kids,â said McCourty, âand the only thing I could think about was I have to tell my kids what my mom taught me as I became a teenager about how to handle being pulled over by a cop.
âHow to conduct myself, what clothes to wear so that when I went somewhere, people would think I had an education and didnât think I didnât know how to speak correctly or that I was intimidating or a threat to them.
âThose are the conversations my mom had with me as a teenager. I looked at my kids and I was like, Iâll have to tell my son to act a certain way so people donât think heâs a threat so heâll always be able to come home. Iâll have to tell my daughter the same thing.
âThat just broke my heart last night because I know my momâs mom told her that and my grandmotherâs mother told her that. Dating back hundreds of years, that has been an ongoing conversation in Black households. Eventually I have to have that conversation.â
While NBA players boycotted playoff games Wednesday and some Major League Baseball games were postponed and NFL teams canceled practice, McCourty said he hasnât thought about doing anything as a team in protest.
The situation has been weighing too heavily on his mind to be able to come up with a plan.
âAs an individual, I havenât been able to come to grips with anything, let alone try to be a voice to guys and say we should or shouldnât do,â said McCourty. âI donât have that answer. Iâve been trying to handle things from an individual standpoint of trying to understand.
âItâs been hard for me individually to try to say we should do this and we should do that. Iâve been a guy who says, âThis is important, guys. Come on, letâs do this.â Right now, I donât know if I tell a young rookie we donât need to practice. I donât have that answer. I donât want to do something just to do it because everybody else is doing it. Iâm still searching for that.â
McCourty said he worries that if change does not come, then people will become ânumbâ to events like the one that happened in Wisconsin and the George Floyd incident in Minnesota last spring.
âI think of the football term that every coach has said to me: If youâre not getting better, youâre getting worse,â said McCourty. âThe more we see all of these tragic events happen, you become numb to it.
âI saw the video (of Blake) and I was like, dang, well, what did he do? This isnât a movie or a video game. Youâre watching real life. Youâre watching a (white) kid walk around (Kenosha), a 17-year-old kid walking around with a deadly rifle (during the protests).
âIf things donât get better, yeah, they will get worse. As those things keep happening, you get numb to it and it becomes the norm. Thatâs my biggest fear that someday this continues to just happen and people get tired of yelling from balconies or going and making statements or trying to help and it just becomes normalized.â
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