Kings Owner Vivek Ranadivé: "We At The Kings Recognize Your People's Ability To Protest Peacefully, And We Respect That"

After the Kings’ win tonight over the Hawks was delayed and ultimately played in front of a tiny crowd—with the arena shutting its doors before tip-off, due to the presence of protests over last weekend’s fatal police shooting of Sacramento man Stephon Clark—team owner Vivek Ranadivé discussed Clark’s death and the protests in a brief speech.

“We at the Kings recognize your people’s ability to protest peacefully, and we respect that,” Ranadivé said, after called Clark’s death a “horrific, horrific tragedy in our community” and giving his sympathies to the 22-year-old man’s family.

“We stand here before you, old, young, black, white, brown, and we are all united in our commitment. We recognize that it’s not just business as usual, and we are going to work really hard to bring everybody together to make the world a better place, starting with our own community, and we’re going to work really hard to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again.”

Clark was shot and killed by police in his grandparents’ backyard on Sunday night.