Shaquille O'Neal Talks To His Children 'All The Time' About How To Interact With Police Officers

After George Floyd's death, Shaquille O'Neal acknowledged that he's often cautioned his children about how to interact with police officers.

"I have that talk with them all the time," O'Neal said in a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. "I tell them, first of all, you have to try to diffuse the situation by showing respect because you have to understand that these people are also out here doing their job. So, you gotta diffuse the situation. And if it happens to get rough, don't do anything. Don't say anything. Just comply."

O'Neal, who has six children, tells them that he'll be the one to do the talking.

"When it's all said and done, you call me," O'Neal said. "And if stuff gets out of hand, then I will handle it. I will be the one to come out there and act crazy. I don't want you to act crazy while you're out there by yourself. So, I just try to tell them to just comply, to just listen."

O'Neal, a four-time NBA champion who became a reserve police officer in South Florida in 2015, said what happened to Floyd was unequivocally wrong. Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed black man, died after white police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for over eight minutes despite him saying multiple times that he couldn't breathe in Minneapolis on May 25.

"There's an old saying that goes, ‘What's right is right and what's wrong is wrong,'" O'Neal said. "What happened to George Floyd was all the way wrong. Absolutely wrong. Uncalled for. I've never seen that technique taught. A lot of police officers I've talked to would never do that. Everybody's upset. Everybody's tired. We demand justice."

O'Neal acknowledged that even when a person is compliant, such as Floyd, abuses happen.

"I try to be real with them and have, you know, certain conversations," O'Neal said of his children. "But, you know, from the videos that I've seen with Mr. Floyd, he was compliant. I've seen three different videos. I saw one video, they had him on a wall. He wasn't talking back. He wasn't struggling. I saw another video of the car, you know, appears to be they were roughing him up. And then the last video, I see the officer with his knee on his neck. That's not supposed to happen but I have those conversations all the time. But I also tell them that, you know, just show respect."

O'Neal added that he's been heartened by the nationwide protests and collective outrage following Floyd's senseless killing.

"I'm 48 years old and I've seen, you know, outbreaks and riots before," he said. "This is the first time I think the country is doing it all at the same time. I've never seen it in more than one city."