By Kevin Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis – St. Louis clergyman B.T. Rice is clarifying comments he made last month regarding a controversial March 31 shooting incident involving two St. Louis police officers.
When the two officers fired 28 shots into a car carrying two adults and three children, Rice said his first thought was to urge people to carry concealed weapons to arm themselves against city police.
But Rice says his remarks were taken out of context and detract from the real issue of preventing unjustified shootings.
"I posed a hypothetical that said that if these two trigger happy policemen are going to be firing at innocent, unarmed people, then maybe - just maybe - we need to protect ourselves against these two officers," Rice said.
The St. Louis Police Officers Association had called for Rice to resign as a police chaplain, but now says it's time to put the issue to bed.