14 DAY TRIAL // NBC pre-empted the first quarter of Sunday’s 49ers-Patriots game to air the speech held by President Barack Obama in Newtown, Connecticut, at the vigil for the victims of this Friday’s shooting. Some football fans were quite enraged at having to miss the game like that.
It’s never a bad thing to be passionate about something, and that includes sports too. However, some of the people who have taken to Twitter to rant about missing the football game for Obama’s speech have crossed the line.
It seems that the whole thing started with Bradley Patterson, an uninvited walk-on long snapper with North Alabama, who was among the first to tweet racist, offensive remarks about the President, AL.com reports.
He is no longer with the team after the offensive tweet but, as it happens, no measures can be taken against those other people who joined in in bashing the President.
Most of them picked on him being black, while others criticized him for being “stupid.” All said they did not want to hear him talk of the Newtown massacre because they just wanted to watch the game.
Deadspin has screenshots of some of the most offensive tweets, so follow the link if you’re curious as to what the fuss is all about – but *please note that discretion is recommended because of graphic language.
As we also informed you earlier today, the President spoke at the vigil and went out of his way to assure the families of the victims he would be doing whatever he could to prevent such tragedies from happening.
He also stressed this was the time for action: action to offer comfort and support to the victims’ families, and action to make the American society better.
“In the coming weeks, I'll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens, from law enforcement, to mental health professionals, to parents and educators, in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this, because what choice do we have? We can't accept events like this as routine,” Obama said.
“As a country we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of politics,” Obama added.
Below is his speech in full.
