Popovich delivers fiery response to police killing of Daunte Wright: ‘It makes you sick to your stomach’

SAN ANTONIO – Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich used his pregame session with the media on Monday to deliver a fiery, and at times emotional response, to the police killing of Daunte Wright outside Minneapolis.

“It just makes you sick to your stomach. How many times does that have to happen? As sick to our stomachs as we might feel, you know, that individual is dead,” Popovich said. “His family’s grieving and his friends are grieving and we just keep moving on as if nothing’s happened.”

Popovich then slammed gun rights leaders and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who he called a “liar.”

“We see what’s happening with policing and young black men, and some other people of color, and with the massacres of our children, it’s the same thing. It goes on and on and everybody says, ‘well when is it going to be enough?’ Of course, I don’t have those answers, but the people who continually fight to maintain that status quo are not good people.

The other day when guns came up, (Abbott) actually made the statement, ‘they’re coming for your guns. That’s going to be the next step. They’re going to take away your guns.’ Nobody is taking away anybody’s guns and he knows it, so he’s a liar who wants to keep his seat. He wants to continue to be in power and he’ll say whatever he has to do to follow the lead of Donald Trump and the rest of the Republicans.”

Popovich also blasted what he described as people or groups who empower police unions and called for transparency.

“Do these people want a country or not? These people have grandchildren, they want their grandchildren to go to work, to go to school and go through these drills and worry about being murdered? What does it take to care more about them then your freaking power and your position and your donors?

And with policing it’s the same damn way. How many young black kids have to be killed for no good reason? How many so that we can empower the police unions. We need to find out who funds these people. I want to know what owners of the NBA fund these people who perpetrate these lies. Maybe that’s a good place to start. So it’s all transparent.”

Popovich’s pregame session is embedded below: