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Christian NFL player Ben Watson took to his social media account to stress to his followers that we cannot overlook the importance of father’s in our children’s lives after the father of slain 23-year-old African-American Sylville Smith accepted some of the blame for his son being shot and killed by a Milwaukee Police officer last weekend.
Patrick Smith shared the blame for his son’s death during an interview with a local Fox affiliate on Sunday. Here is some of what Smith had to say.
“I had to blame myself for a lot of things, too, because your hero is your dad and I played a very big part in my family’s role model for them,” Smith said. “Being on the street, doing things of the street life — entertaining, drug dealing and pimping ― and they’re looking at their dad like, ‘He’s doing all these things.'”
“I got out of jail two months ago, but I’ve been going back and forth in jail and they see those things,” Smith continued. “So I’d like to apologize to my kids because this is the role model they look up to. When they see the wrong role model, this is what you get.”
Ben Watson, the father of five on Tuesday wrote the following message on his FB page:
“Comments from Sylville Smith’s dad confirm the importance of fathers in their children’s lives. This CANNOT be overlooked as we discuss solutions,” Watson wrote Tuesday. “The importance of the spiritual and natural family in our culture is continually being disregarded, dismissed and defamed. We have not and will not be better for it. #Milwaukee.”
