A Black Los Angeles police officer wrote a letter to NBA star LeBron James, inviting him to sit down for a discussion about policing.
“Your current stance on policing is so off base and extreme. Your tweet that targeted a police officer in Ohio who saved a young woman’s life was irresponsible and disturbing,” officer Deon Joseph, a 24-year veteran of the LAPD, wrote on Facebook. “It showed a complete lack of understanding of the challenge of our job in the heat of a moment. You basically put a target on the back of a human being who had to make a split second decision to save a life from a deadly attack.”
Joseph’s letter comes after James posted and later deleted a controversial tweet following the death of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio. Bryant was fatally shot by a responding police officer as she was attacking another person with a knife.
Joseph praised James’s charitable work and noted he was a fan of the Lakers, but also noted the NBA star never apologized to an officer that made a decision “he and many others wish they never had to make.”
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“Instead of apologizing, you deflected,” Joseph wrote. “You said you took your tweet down because you did not want it to be used for hate, when the tweet itself was the embodiment of hatred, rooted in a lack of understanding of the danger of the situation.”
The officer told James he had “no hatred for him” but hoped the message would reach him so that he might have an opportunity to “sit down with you and talk.”
“I can help you understand the reality of the profession of policing, and that there is another side you need to hear,” Joseph wrote. “You are tired of Black folks dying? So am I. You hate racism and police brutality? So do I. But you cannot paint 800,000 men and women who are of all races, faiths, sexual orientations and are also mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, preachers, coaches, community members and just human with such a broad and destructive brush.”
James has been a frequent critic of racism in policing in recent years, leading other NBA players in calling for reforms while signaling support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
But Joseph said he believes James is capable of having “a real and open conversation” that could help the star “discover we are not the monsters you have come to believe we are.”
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“The offer is on the table Lebron. No cameras. No fanfare. Just two men who care talking,” Joseph wrote. “I know it’s a long shot. But this division and hatred must stop. It’s clear based on rising crime in marginalized communities that cops and the community need to build bridges to save lives on all sides. That cannot be done through the demonization of any group of people.”
