Colts and @RaheemBrock should man up and apologize to New Orleans

Yes, Raheem Brock, defensive end for the Indianapolis Colts, is stupid. I'm just surprised to see his team come out and say it.

Seems that Brock (who is on Twitter as @RaheemBrock) posted an offensive graphic about New Orleans (click through to Da Paper to see it, their catch, their click-through). It's a satellite image of Hurricane Katrina, looks like on 28-August-2005. Someone photoshopped a Colts' horseshoe into the eye of the storm. Brock shared the image in his twitter stream and said:

Storm bout to hit miami on sunday! Lol

(emphasis mine)

Yeah, a real class act. OK, nobody said second-string defensive ends were smart guys. But the response from the Colts organization is the disturbing one:

A spokesman for the Colts, Craig Kelley, said Brock told him this afternoon that the image was added to Brock's Twitter photo page "without his knowledge."

"The Internet can pose problems to innocent people, and he was not on board with this thing," Kelley said, adding, "If you're going to pump it up, you're going to pump it up. At least you should know the true story."

OK, somebody needs to give Mr. Kelley a bit of an education on Twitter. Does he really believe that a second-string defensive end has a public relations person doing his twitter for him? I can believe that Brock is stupid enough to give out his twitter password, but does his employer have to concede that stupidity in public?

No, this is just a pathetic way to blow off a very offensive story. The Colts should make Brock man up and apologize. Then they should make Kelley man up and apologize for being stupid.  The hype and excitement of Super Bowl week isn't an excuse to be an idiot.  Kelley may think he's at the Epicentre Of The Known World, but come Monday morning, Miami is just another American city and life goes on.

Katrina jokes just aren't funny, Mr. Kelley. People died. Thousands had their lives wrecked. I know that you folks live up there in your little white-bread, insulated world, but the rest of us aren't this obnoxious. This was a story that you should have gotten out in front of. You didn't, and you've let your employer down. This is the kind of thing where the league should step in and start damage control.

Man up, Raheem. Admit you said something tasteless, apologize, and get on with it.

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