On Tuesday afternoon, a Minneapolis jury convicted former police officer Derek Chauvin on all three counts — second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter — for the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
The video of the murder — which showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds — sparked global protests of police brutality and racial injustice against the Black community last year. And Tuesday’s verdict represented an important step towards a semblance of justice for the Floyd family, but it didn’t change the fact that George Floyd should still be alive today.
Predictably, many social media accounts with communications teams wanted to make a public statement about the verdict. And in the sports world, specifically, it would be tough to find a worse response than the Las Vegas Raiders’ effort.
This was just so bad.
The Raiders tweeted, “I can breathe 4-20-21,” in a Twitter graphic. This morbid play off of Floyd’s final words as he was being murdered did not sit well with anyone — even as the Raiders kept the tweet live and pinned for 30-plus minutes.
Again, the verdict doesn’t bring Floyd back to life. He still can’t breathe. Who are the Raiders talking about then? The Raiders’ tweet essentially celebrated a tragedy with the kind of tone-deafness you can expect from the NFL.
Fans were not pleased.
You know what. This is the worst tweet I’ve ever seen. https://t.co/P8tK8blgFv
— The Big Chillin' (@Kofie) April 20, 2021
I've seen a lot of bad tweets on this app but this might be first-ballot Hall of Fame worthy https://t.co/ejyfrxZynf
— Daniel Oyefusi (@DanielOyefusi) April 20, 2021
Massive yikes. They even pinned it. https://t.co/ofZCiyTg4P
— Jack McGuire (@JackMacCFB) April 20, 2021
Hire more black people https://t.co/4JRI1Q8MNV
— Carrington Harrison (@cdotharrison) April 20, 2021
It’s crazy how little companies invest in their social media communication and marketing departments when it can really make or break your brand https://t.co/BgylnadOoF
— Këv (@KJS407) April 20, 2021
25 minutes & still not deleted?? https://t.co/xoPrFDtu3t
— Carter 🌒 (@_BloodSyn) April 20, 2021
Bruh…. https://t.co/u43FnkMZ0h pic.twitter.com/eVtM2F5WEL
— Damien Woody (@damienwoody) April 20, 2021
Not only did you tweet it, which is offensive enough. But you pinned it. You’re proud of it. Who is the “I” here? It’s certainly not Mr. Floyd. https://t.co/OCs7TnLdLV
— April (@ReignOfApril) April 20, 2021
I keep double checking to see if the @Raiders verified account actually tweeted this. https://t.co/xeXVwKSAER
— Emmanuel Acho (@EmmanuelAcho) April 20, 2021
there is absolutely a social media team that sat and deliberated about what to post, then settled on this, rather than, say, anything else or nothing at all. https://t.co/Vk7R1DqSsr
— Ed Zitron (@edzitron) April 20, 2021
Never tweet, Raiders.
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