Former Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis said Friday he’s donating $100,000 to bail men out of the Mecklenburg County jail to be with their children on Father’s Day.
The announcement came at a Juneteenth forum hosted by the rapper DaBaby. The focus was racism and policing.
DaBaby talked about his well-publicized run-ins with the law, saying police single out black people for traffic stops and bogus arrests.
"I promise you, somebody's getting pulled over right now 'cause there's two black people in the car," he said, urging Chief District Court Judge Elizabeth Trosch and her colleagues to be more skeptical of police testimony.
Davis said no one is exempt from such treatment. He talked about being pulled over soon after he arrived in Charlotte, when police said his passenger had thrown a bag of weed out the window. He was afraid his football career would end on a false accusation, he said.
"There are so many people who go through the same story, the same struggle. We aren’t exempt," Davis said. "We’re professional athletes – they cheer for us on Sunday but at the end of the day when we take the uniforms off, we still black. We still get treated that way."
Davis, who left the Panthers in 2019 and has signed with the Washington Redskins, announced his donation after activist Kristie Puckett-Williams described the Father’s Day bailout effort. She and others plan to be at the jail at Saturday to post bond.
