Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick launched an initiative through his Know Your Rights Camp on Wednesday to offer free, secondary autopsies to those whose death is "police-related."
According to the campaign's website, a team of board-certified pathologists will perform a second autopsy, disclose preliminary findings, and issue final autopsy reports when requested by the victims' families.
"Our pathologists will actively seek the truth to provide the victims' families with the most medically sound cause of death," the group said.
Since police-related deaths are a tragic and heartbreaking experience, the initiative says the goal is to eliminate concerns for family members about the reliability and objectivity of the autopsy conducted by the state's coroner or medical examiner, the detachment of the autopsy, the risk of manipulating evidence, potential bias on behalf of the coroner or medical examiner, or use of faulty forensic procedures.
"The Initiative seeks to be a resource to victims’ family members by providing confidence in the forensic procedures and comfort in knowing the pathologists will conduct the autopsy with neutrality," the initiative said.
The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback last played in the NFL in 2016, the same year he began kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial inequality.
Kaepernick, who led the 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII, and former teammate Eric Reid settled their lawsuit against the NFL in February 2019.
In the lawsuit, they claimed owners conspired together to keep them both off teams because they knelt through the national anthem before games.
