The mother of Antwon Rose Jr. said she was disappointed that Maurkice Pouncey did not reach out to her before writing on Instagram that he was distancing himself from the team’s decision to place her son’s name on its helmets.
It was this past Thursday when the Pittsburgh Steelers center wrote on Instagram that wearing Rose’s name on the back of his helmet “inadvertently supported a cause of which I did not fully comprehend the entire background of the case.”
Michelle Kenney told ESPN her issue was not that Pouncey didn’t want to wear her son’s name, but that he didn’t reach out to her for an opportunity to understand each other.
Kenney said she is not anti-police. She added that she believes she and Pouncey, who wrote that his focus will “continue to be on helping the police in our communities,” can work together to reach the same goal.
“If he got to know me, he would understand that I am not anti-police,” Kenney told ESPN on Thursday night. “I’m actually an advocate for not defunding the police. … I actually want the relationship between the police and the community to be better. So based on part of his letter, we have some common ground here.
“I’m definitely with him that we need to make some changes so that we can establish better relationships between the police and the communities but there’s work to be done … I would have much rather he reached out to me and said, ‘Ms. Kenney, I’m questioning my decision on wearing Antwon’s name. I’m choosing not to do it, but how can we move forward?'”
Rose, who was unarmed, was shot and killed by East Pittsburgh police in 2018 after the car he was riding in with other teenagers matched the description of one involved in a drive-by shooting.
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NFL stories via Google! Follow Us
That shooting victim fingered Rose as the gunman.
Officer Michael Rosfeld was charged with criminal homicide but was acquitted of all charges in the shooting death of Rose.
The family reached a $2 million settlement in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the borough of East Pittsburgh and Rosfeld in 2019.
