Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr used his pre-game press conference to call for strict gun control in response to the Uvalde massacre on Tuesday night. The leftist basketball coach blamed the shooting on Republican Senators who refuse to back “common-sense gun reforms.” In 2020, Steve Kerr called for police officers to be removed from Oakland schools as the George Floyd riots swept the nation.
“When are we gonna do something?!” Kerr shouted after listing recent mass shootings in California, Buffalo and Uvalde. “I’m so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there,” said a visibly emotional Kerr. “I’m tired of the moments of silence. Enough.”
“We are being held hostage by 50 senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote, despite what we the American people want,” the coach continued. “They won’t vote on it, because they want to hold on to their own power.”
“I ask you, Mitch McConnell, and ask all of you Senators who refuse to do anything about the violence, the school shootings, the supermarket shootings, I ask you: Are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children, our elderly, and our churchgoers?” he continued.
“It’s pathetic,” Kerr said before storming out of the press conference. “I’ve had enough.”
Steve Kerr on today's tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas. pic.twitter.com/lsJ8RzPcmC
— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) May 24, 2022
In 2020, coach Kerr joined a protest outside an Oakland high school and called for the school’s resource officers to be removed.
“This is a real reckoning for much of America, especially white America,” said Kerr as he spoke to the crowd. He joined dozens of Oakland Unified School district parents and students who are calling for the district to dismantle its internal police force, according to NBC 11.
“You really have to listen to the community in terms of what’s happening and what’s best for the community,” said Steve Kerr. “That’s what the community is calling for and I’m all in support of that,” Kerr went on to say of removing police officers from Oakland schools.
Steve Kerr in 2020 at the height of the riots, called to remove police officers from Oakland Schools saying "This is a real reckoning for much of America, especially white America."
Following this speech, the district voted unanimously to remove the officers.
pic.twitter.com/fpGc0j4tE9
— Ari Hoffman (@thehoffather) May 25, 2022
The district unanimously voted to disband its police force after the speech from Kerr.