National Football League

Fisher: Rams players exercised free speech, won't be disciplined

Published Dec. 1, 2014 7:42 p.m. ET

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St. Louis Rams head coach Jeff Fisher declined to take questions from the media on Monday regarding the "hands up, don't shoot" gesture made by five players in Sunday's game against the Oakland Raiders.

Fisher did say, however, that the players "made the choice to exercise their free speech (Sunday)" and that they wouldn't be disciplined.

"It's my personal opinion, and I firmly believe, that it's important that I keep sports and politics separate," Fisher said, via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "I'm a head coach. I'm not a politician, an activist, or an expert on societal issues. So I'm gonna answer questions about the game."

The decision to not elaborate on the topic came after the St. Louis Police Officers Union condemned the players' gesture on Sunday evening, saying they were "profoundly disappointed."

Officials with the St. Louis police officers met with team officials Monday.

"We feel strongly that they better understand our perspective and the perspective of the law-abiding citizens that support law enforcement," St. Louis Police Officer Association business manager Jeff Roorda said. "We're going to continue these conversations later this week and ... we're going to hold off on any further public comments in the hopes that fruitful talks continue."

The idea to make the gesture happened before the game, according to Cook.

"Kenny Britt told me he was doing it, and some of the other guys were doing it," Cook said. "So we all just hopped on the bandwagon and came up with the idea of how we were going to do it."

The Rams said the NFL would not discipline the players, either.

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