DANTE LASTING
Staff Writer
The Buffalo Bills signed cornerback Josh Norman in free agency this past spring. He came to Buffalo for the first time on Wednesday, June 10.
He didn’t come for training or team activities, but to make a change in the community.
The eight-year NFL veteran came to Buffalo with New Orleans Saints linebacker and longtime friend, Demario Davis, to speak with Buffalo’s mayor, Byron Brown.
Brown held a press conference Wednesday to announce reforms to the Buffalo Police Department.
Along with the two NFL players, Mayor Brown stood with other community leaders and members of the Common Council during this press conference.
During this press conference, Brown laid out some reforms and policy changes for the Buffalo Police Department.
Some of the reforms and policy changes are:
- Increasing the level of transparency in the Buffalo Police Department
- Strengthening training programs that enhance officers’ de-escalation skills
- Publishing how anyone can access and view police body cam footage
- Issuing an executive order that will:
- Stop arrests for low-level nonviolent offenses
- Replace the emergency response team’s crowd control duties with a public protection detail
- Reform and restructure fines and fee schedules
Mayor Brown said during this press conference that this was just the start of the actions that will be made in Buffalo.
Here is the link to the entire press release for Advancing Racial Equality and Strengthening Restorative Policing in the City of Buffalo.
Norman and Davis got involved in the police reform in Buffalo as a part of Norman wanting to make a change in the country by traveling to five cities in six days.
They both got to speak their mind during the mayor’s press conference and both had powerful things to say.
In an interview with the Buffalo Bills’ multimedia journalist, Maddy Glab, shortly after the press conference, Norman explained why he was called to do this: “I knew that change needed to come, so I just started praying and I was like, ‘God, what is it that you want me to do?’”
“And sure enough, he came and visited me in the shower… and it was clear as day,” he said. “I want you to go to five cities in six days. I didn’t know where we were going or what we were going to do, but I just knew that I needed to go to these cities and bridge the gap between the community and the government in those cities.”
The two NFL defensive stars both came into the league in 2012, and have been using their platforms to make a change. Both Norman and Davis have volunteered at the U.S.-Mexico border, helping people who are seeking asylum.
They went on a shopping spree and made care packages for immigrant children who were detained at the border in 2018. They also sent money and resources when they could not be there in-person during the NFL regular season, and spent the time to help out multiple families during that off-season.
Buffalo was just one stop on their six-day journey, but Norman said that he hadn’t yet seen this type of change happen in a city where the mayor is listening to the people and implementing changes in less than a week.
In the NFL, this usually isn’t how a free agent gets introduced to the new city that he is playing in.
But for Norman, he is making a difference off the field before he does on the field.