Jeff Roorda: Police Leader Who Criticized St. Louis Rams ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ Gesture Has Checkered Past

Jeff Roorda blasted a group of players on the St. Louis Rams for making a “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture in solidarity with protesters in nearby Ferguson. But it turns out the leader of the St. Louis Police Officers Association has quite a controversial history of his own.

Within hours of the gesture made by a group of five Rams players before their game against the Oakland Raiders, Roorda released a statement blasting the group and calling on the NFL and team to discipline them.

“I know that there are those that will say that these players are simply exercising their First Amendment rights,” Roorda, the group’s business manager, said in a statement. “Well, I’ve got news for people who think that way, cops have first amendment rights too, and we plan to exercise ours. I’d remind the NFL and their players that it is not the violent thugs burning down buildings that buy their advertiser’s products. It’s cops and the good people of St. Louis and other NFL towns that do. Somebody needs to throw a flag on this play. If it’s not the NFL and the Rams, then it’ll be cops and their supporters.”

Jeff Roorda added that he planned to speak to the NFL and St. Louis Rams organization to “voice the organization’s displeasure,” but that apparently did not do much. On Monday, both the league and the team said the players would not be disciplined.

But as SB Nation found out, Jeff Roorda actually has been involved in quite a bit of controversy himself. Roorda has led fundraising efforts on behalf of Darren Wilson, the officer who shot teen Michael Brown and kicked off the unrest in Ferguson.

It turned out that Roorda was fired from a police department in Arnold, Missouri, in 2001 for filing false reports and making unauthorized recordings of conversations with his supervisor.

A court document related to Roorda’s firing had more details:

So viewed, the record reveals that in July 1997, Roorda attempted to try to “cover” for another police officer by filing a report that contained false statements as to what happened during a suspect’s apprehension and arrest. ? As a result of this false report, all charges against the defendant involved were dropped, and Roorda received a written reprimand from B.J. Nelson (the City’s Chief of Police at the time) for violating the City Police Department’s General Order 74.4 (“False Reporting”)

Jeff Roorda did not comment on the NFL’s decision not to discipline the St. Louis Rams players for their “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture.