Steelers Center Maurkice Pouncey Says He “Inadvertently Supported” Wearing Antwon Rose Jr’s Name on Helmet

Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey released a statement on Instagram on Thursday saying that he "inadvertently supported" putting the name of Antwon Rose Jr. on the back of his helmet.  Rose, a Black teenager, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Pittsburgh back in 2018.

Pouncey, a co-captain, says he was given limited information about the shooting and wasn't aware of the entire story surrounding it when he supported the decision to put Antwon Rose Jr's name on the back of the helmet.

Those details can be found here:

Rose was 17 years old when he was shot and killed in 2018 by an East Pittsburgh police officer while running from a traffic stop. He was in a vehicle that got pulled over that matched the description of a vehicle connected to a shooting that happened minutes earlier in North Braddock.

The victim who was shot told cops Antwon was the trigger man.

Former Officer Michael Rosfeld was found not guilty of criminal homicide in the shooting death of Rose.

Pouncey went onto say that he will make his own decisions about the name that appears on the back of his helmet.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

@pghpolicechief @pghpolice @northmiamipd @lakelandpd

A post shared by Maurkice Pouncey (@maurkicepouncey) on Sep 17, 2020 at 6:30am PDT

Pouncey's post comes after his fellow offensive lineman, left tackle Alejandro Villanueva, covered up Antwon Rose Jr's name on Monday night with the name of deceased Iraq War hero Alwyn Cashe.

This was bound to happen at some point.  There are bad cops and there are terrible officer related shootings involving Black victims.  But there are also some cases that aren't as easily covered with a broad brush.