CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In December 2014, then-Cleveland Browns receiver Andrew Hawkins inserted himself into the national debate over police violence when he showed up for warm-ups wearing a shirt that read "Justice for Tamir Rice."
The gesture came more than two years before the Browns joined a movement started by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick to protest the police-involved shootings of mostly black men in cities across the country. Eight Browns players chose to kneel during the opening ceremony of the Aug. 22 pre-season game against the New York Giants, setting off a new round of controversy that reached all the way to the White House.