Las Vegas police union sends scathing letter to the Golden Knights.

The sports world, despite the recent shutdown from the pandemic, has been hit with a wave of protests that have followed the wake of an incident in Kenosha, Wisconsin in which a man named Jacob Blake was shot by law enforcement. The protests initially began in the National Basketball Association with players in that league opting to boycott playoff games for a short period of time, and those protests have since spread to other sports including the National Hockey League. 

In the case of the NHL however there has been some very notable backlash from the fan base to these protests, although there is of course a large segment of the fan base that also supports the players, and the backlash is starting to have some real consequences for the NHL. Earlier today we covered a story in which an NHL team has lost accounts from "big clients" and now there are police unions issuing statements against the actions of certain NHL teams as well. 

On Sunday a letter from Steve Grammas, the President of the police union in Las Vegas, issued a scathing letter to the Las Vegas Golden Knights on behalf of Las Vegas Metropolitan police officers. In the letter Grammas slammed the Golden Knights for not waiting for all of the facts to come out in the Jacob Blake case prior to casting judgement on the officers involved, and by extension openly questioned how loyal the Golden Knights would be to the police in their own cities should they ever find themselves in a similar circumstance. 

Here's how Grammas opened his letter:

Dear Mr. Foley and the Golden Knights Hockey Team:

My name is Steve Grammas and I am a Police Officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and also the President of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, which represents over 3,500 commissioned officers between LVMPD and the City of Las Vegas. 

I write to you and your organization to express my disappointment in the organization and the players for their position as it relates to the recent shooting of Jacob Blake. It appears, to my law enforcement brothers and sisters, that the Golden Knights would rather jump on the bandwagon of attacking the police profession rather than waiting for the facts of an event to be brought to light. Watching the video of the incident in Kenosha, I myself have many questions about how the officer ended up using deadly force. Rather than immediately siding with the officer, just because he and I share the same profession, I needed to wait to get FACTS of the incident. What I do know, from the DOJ report, was that the suspect was wanted for 3rd degree Sexual Assault, however, as I believe the reports on this are false regarding the victim being a child. The suspect was armed with a knife, which precludes an officer from closing the distance and going hands on. Officers deployed less lethal options, twice, in an attempt to subdue the suspect. And, I did not see this cited by the DOJ but rather the suspect's attorney, his three children were in the car. This police department does not have body worn cameras, as is reported, and so we will never have video, first hand view of the incident or dialogue of the incident. These right now are the only facts that have been substantiated. While all of these may not amount to an officer using deadly force, it plays a part in the total outcome when all of the facts are revealed. I wonder the opinion of the Golden Knights and their players would be if the following were or are true:

1. What if the suspect told the officers he was going to get a firearm from his car to attempt to take their lives? 

2. What if the suspect said he was going back into the car in an attempt to harm the children?

3. What if the suspect was stealing the car and kidnapping the kids from the mother?

4. What he intended on a murder/suicide which is all too common in Domestic Violence cases?

Now I do not know if any of the above are true, but neither do you or the players of the Golden Knights. That is why it is important to wait for a full and thorough investigation to happen. Yet you all make statements, boycott playing your sport and call for more action against the police!

Your organization is extremely quick to turn their backs on law enforcement, which leads me to wonder if we have an incident in Las Vegas, where other sports groups or political parties say what the police did was wrong, with no facts, would you turn on us as well. It appears clear, the answer is yes! When our officer was senselessly shot and paralyzed, you signed some stick and sent them to his family. No boycott, no postponing of games. When hundreds of my officers were hits with rocks, bricks, bottles, edged weapons and even had guns fired at them, the only concern for VGK was figuring out how to finish the Stanley Cup. Again, no threat of cancelling the remainder of the season unless the violence against officers stopped.

What Grammas is referencing here when he speaks of the paralyzed officer is the story of officer Shay Mikalonis. Mikalonis, who had no history of police brutality, was senselessly shot in the neck and paralyzed from the neck down during a protest from George Floyd in Las Vegas. Today Mikalonis, who is only 29 years old, lives in a long term care facility and unable to speak as a result of what was by all accounts a heinous and senseless crime.

Grammar's letter continued from there and he did not relent on his scathing response to the actions of the Golden Knights. The police union President went on to criticize "uninformed athletes" and expressed his belief that the Golden Knights support of law enforcement was only superficial.

The remainder of Grammar's letter went as follows:

It is clear, now, that your veiled support of the heroes of law enforcement, the same ones you praised for 1 October, is only when the media or a certain political part or other un-informed athletes tell you it is OK. That is not OK to me and it is not OK to the men and women I represent as is evident from the many texts, emails and Facebook posts that I have received.

To close, I ask that the next time VGK makes a statement about police, you all educate yourselves on the issue at hand or wait until more facts can be revealed. Nobody hates a bad cop more than a good cop. 

Sincerely,

Steve Grammas 

President

There's no doubt that this is an extremely charged response on the part of the Las Vegas police, but given the reaction we have seen to the NHL's protests thus far I have to wonder if more of these letters have not been sent more quietly to teams around the league. Police unions are not only a powerful lobbying body within a city, but they are obviously of vital importance to the NHL and the other sports leagues in North America due to the security services that they provide for major sporting events.

Please let us know your thoughts on this one in the comments.