Sacramento Kings' owner Vivek Ranadive addressed the crowd after their game against the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday in response to the Stephon Clark protests.
Protesters marched throughout downtown Sacramento in outrage of the shooting death of the 22-year-old man shot and and killed by two Sacramento police officers.
Protesters blocked 1-5 traffic in downtown and the Kings were scheduled to play the Hawks at 7 p.m., but the game was delayed until 7:23 due to the protesters blocking the entrances of the arena.
You can read and watch his speech below:
“On Sunday we had a horrific, horrific tragedy in our community. On behalf of the players, executives, ownership and the entire Kings family — first of all, we wanted to express our deepest sympathies to the family. What happened was absolutely horrific, and we are so very sorry, so very sorry for your loss. I also wanted to say that we at the Kings recognize people’s ability to protest peacefully and we respect that. We here at the Kings recognize we have a big platform — it’s a privilege but it’s also a responsibility — a responsibility we take very seriously. And we stand here before you — old, young, black, white, brown — and we are all united in our commitment. We recognize that it’s not just business as usual, and we are going to work really hard to bring everybody together to make the world a better place starting with our own community, and we’re going to work really hard to prevent this kind of a tragedy from happening again. Thank you all for your patience and have a good night.”