UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones turned a viral video into a plan of action, doing his part to prevent riots in his own hometown.
Jones explained Tuesday to “Fox & Friends” host Ainsley Earhardt how he had ended up on the streets of Albuquerque, taking cans of spray paint from would-be vandals — and how he was turning that spontaneous moment into a plan to keep his city safe. (RELATED: UFC Star Jon Jones Stops Rioters In Albuquerque)
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Earhardt began by asking Jones what had driven him to go out and try to stop people from vandalizing in his city. “Our whole country needs to be remembering the legacy and the life of George Floyd and instead, they are out there spray painting vandalizing and looting and you did the right thing. Why did you do that?” she asked.
Jones explained that he had gotten a call from a friend about a protest and thought that he should go and join — but by the time he arrived, the peaceful protest was pretty much over.
“A lot of people are just hanging around still and the vandalism started right away,” Jones said. “And I just noticed that no one is speaking out everyone is just kind of scared of these hooligans attacking over the town and I’ve never seen anything like it. No police were around anywhere and people were just doing whatever they wanted at places I like to hang out at and I felt like a coward I was just watching people do whatever they wanted in our community so I just started to talk to people to say hey, just kind of realized how much danger I was in by all of these people asking them not to do certain things and finally, I just started taking things from people, and a teammate ended recording the situation and I guess it went viral.”
Earhardt asked Jones what message he wanted to send to those who were out doing the wrong thing, and Jones noted that it was important to remember that communication was the most important thing.
“At the end of the day, these are our relatives that are out there and these are our next door neighbors, our nephews, our nieces, our uncles, so we need to communicate,” Jones said. “All we did last night, I had a bunch of friends and ex-military guys together, neighbors, and we became like our own little local non-violent police force for our community, and we work well with our police and last night we had a protest, and we were our town’s police, our own vision and it worked out great. There was absolutely no violence we waited until the crowds dispersed and we policed our own crowds and we had a few vandalism moments, and we approached that with lots of flashlights and ex-military guys with lots of flashlights and we were very intimidating.”
Jones went on to say that there were more citizens than police, and if they were willing and able to be positive voices in their communities, they could really make a difference in the same way.
“I’m not asking guys to put yourselves in danger but I am asking to use your voice, and do what you can,” he said.
Jones has been busy putting his money where his mouth is, working to help rebuild and clean up in his town as well.
Lots of work to do out in the streets today men. If you’re a real one, call your boys and get to work. #merica ???????????????????????? pic.twitter.com/P5MC43lGmR
— Jon Bones Jones (@JonnyBones) June 1, 2020