Former Atlanta Falcon and Baton Rouge native Warrick Dunn spoke out on his Facebook page following the police attacks in his hometown city Sunday.
Dunn said his heart was broken for the families of the police officers who had lost their loved ones, and while he was not able the fathom why they were being targeted, he was able to empathized with them.
Dunn's mother, Betty Smothers, was a police officer and was ambushed while she was off-duty and escorting a businesswoman at a bank. She was killed by armed robbers.
"Of course this takes me back to when my own black mother was ambushed and killed - by a black man," Dunn wrote.
This week, it just so happens that Dunn is attending a re-sentencing hearing for the man that killed his mother 23 years ago, and he struggles to understand why he is kept alive in the prison system.
Dunn emphasized a need for change in politics, gun laws, law enforcement and parenting to help bring about change and end the violence that has taken place across the country.
"We can't just sit around and talk about how horrible all this is - we have to do something. And that means it ALWAYS starts with the individual," Dunn wrote.
Dunn wrote how he is doing everything he can as a father to raise kids that he hopes will make a positive contribution to society.
"I want to give him something I never had because statistics prove it makes a difference when a child has an active father in his or her life," he said. "And we have to do more to build empathy in children so they have a hard time treating one another badly. It all starts with kids so we have to do all we can to care about kids."
Dunn played running back for the Falcons from 2002 to 2007 and was named the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year in 2005, an award given out annually to a player who is active in the community and charity as well as excellent on the field.
He currently owns a minority stake in the Falcons' ownership group.
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PHOTOS: Warrick Dunn
