Former NFL punter Chris Kluwe was arrested on Tuesday while protesting during a city council meeting in Huntington Beach, California.
Kluwe, who punted in the league from 2005-2012, was speaking at the meeting south of Los Angeles on Tuesday to protest the council's decision to put up a plaque at the local library. The plaque includes an acronym that spells out “MAGA," apparently referencing President Donald Trump and his political movement.
Kluwe, after sharing what he felt “MAGA” stood for, then launched his protest and was quickly arrested and carried out of the building, per the Orange Country Register.
“'MAGA' is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably anti-democracy and most importantly, 'MAGA' is explicitly a Nazi movement,” he said, in part. “You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that’s what it is.
“I will now engage in the time-honored American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience,” he added before walking up onto the stage.
Kluwe was arrested and charged with disrupting an assembly. He was released about four hours later, according to the Register.
Kluwe spent nearly his entire career with the Minnesota Vikings. He was their punter consistently from 2005-2012. He briefly spent time with the Oakland Raiders and Seattle Seahawks, too. He said he was released by the Vikings because of his political beliefs and his support for same-sex marriage.
“I don’t have anything against the Vikings organization itself. I had eight wonderful years with the Minnesota Vikings,” Kluwe told CNN in 2014. “I had a problem with three individual people within the Vikings, and the fact remains is that I did everything my coaches wanted me to do [on the field]. … No one ever told me that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to do.
“The only thing that changed from Year 8 to when I got cut is that I started speaking out on same-sex rights.”
He's continued to be outspoken about his political beliefs since his retirement.
