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TSN cuts away from Maurice Mann talking about Mike Brown and police brutality

Andrew Bucholtz

The football-broadcasting habit of camera closeups on athletes who have just scored often leads to a lot of shoutouts and even occasionally some profanity. It's unusual for it to lead to comments on current events, but that's what happened in the Toronto Argonauts-Winnipeg Blue Bombers clash Tuesday night after Toronto receiver Maurice Mann caught a touchdown pass. Mann caught it right near the back of the end zone and fell forward almost into the signage, meaning that the cameras were right there when he got up. Instead of shouting out his friends or family, though, he used the moment to reference the ongoing situation in Ferguson, Missouri following the police shooting of 18-year-old black teenager Michael Brown. Mann said "Remember Mike Brown and the police brutality" (or possibly "RIP Mike Brown, police brutality...") and then TSN quickly cut away. That led to plenty of Twitter praise for Mann for taking a stand, but criticism for TSN for their quick cut:

Mann's own background on this issue may be notable. In early 2011, a friend of Mann's, 25-year-old Reggie Doucet, was shot dead by police in Los Angeles. Mann and Doucet grew up together in California near Monterey Bay and trained together at times. Both also went on to play Division I college football, at Nevada and Middle Tennessee State respectively. Doucet's death led to Mann putting up Facebook posts about the issue, and he later spoke to Drew Edwards of The Hamilton Spectator about how his friend's death affected him:

Maurice Mann's anger came exploding across his Facebook page just hours after Reggie Doucet Jr., his friend and training partner, was gunned down after a confrontation with police.

"I do not understand how this can happen! They killed my friend on his doorstep! 2 shots to his chest!" Mann wrote. " ... police officers kill a black man in the wrong neighbourhood at the wrong time. I guess we're not allowed to live in those parts ...."

On Jan. 14, according to police and media reports, Doucet got into an early-morning argument with a cab driver in the upscale Playa Vista neighbourhood of Los Angeles, after a night on the town. By the time police arrived, Doucet was naked and "behaving erratically." After a short chase and a scuffle with two cops - the police report was later revised to allege that Doucet tried to grab the gun of one of the officers - Doucet was shot twice and died a short time later.

"I'm lost without my family right now," Mann wrote later that same day. "God has answers, but ... my heart is somewhere else right now." ...

Doucet's death - the LAPD investigation into the shooting is still ongoing - has sparked an intense bout of soul-searching for the 28-year-old Mann, as he's tried to put the loss of his friend into a larger, more meaningful context.

"I was angry when it happened, then I was sad about it," Mann says. "But when I realized what he had done for me, it gave me inspiration."

He's spent time reviewing the correspondence the two of them shared on Facebook, watching old videos of his friend in all phases of his life.

"We all think of Facebook as just this temporary thing, but I really take it as he left me a message in the bigger sense," Mann said. "I want to carry on being the type of person he was: a respectful, courageous and faithful guy."

So, the events in Ferguson obviously hit home for Mann. While some dislike any mixing of politics and sports, it's hard to criticize him here for saying what he thought. As for TSN's decision to cut away from him, that does seem like a poor choice. Those kinds of decisions have to be made instantaneously, though, and it may not have been immediately clear what Mann was trying to say and whether it was going to get the network in trouble. It's notable that they did go back to him in a shot on the bench not long after (at which point he appeared to deliver a more standard shoutout to friends and family). Still, cutting away from Mann so fast doesn't necessarily look good for the network. As David Larkins pointed out, it's in sharp contrast to their usual procedure:

Again, that's probably more of just a quick trigger finger in the TSN truck and a desire to protect the network than any desire to censor Mann. It would be really interesting for some media outlets to talk to him about this afterwards, though. A few-second soundbite after a touchdown is a prominent statement, but it would be interesting to get more of the story from him about why he elected to do so. We'll see if anyone does.