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The St. Louis Police Department has claimed the St. Louis Rams have apologized for several players' actions after they came onto the field Sunday in the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" pose—which has been adopted by protesters in the Michael Brown shooting—before their 52-0 win over the Oakland Raiders.

The Rams, however, are denying they've apologized.

The St. Louis Police Officers Association first demanded an apology from the NFL for the pregame pose before turning its attention to the Rams organization, per ABC News. And in an email to his staff, Police Chief Jon Belmar claimed that vice president of football operations for the Rams, Kevin Demoff, apologized for the players' actions. Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch shared the email:

I received a very nice call this morning from Mr. Kevin Demoff of the St. Louis Rams who wanted to take the opportunity to apologize to our department on behalf of the Rams for the 'Hands Up' gesture that some players took the field with yesterday. Mr. Demoff clearly regretted that any members of the Ram's organization would act in a way that minimized the outstanding work that police officers and departments carry out each and every day. My impression of the call was that it was heartfelt and I assured him that I would share it with my staff.

The Rams organization publicly remained more neutral, however. Rachel Nichols of CNN tweeted the team's statement:

And Demoff also told Nick Wagoner of ESPN that he never apologized:

Nichols also contacted Rams spokesperson Artis Twyman:

The police department then responded to the denial of an apology from the Rams, per Nichols:

Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

It remains unclear if the police department is interpreting its meeting with the Rams in a different light than the team intended or if the organization was willing to say one thing privately and quite another publicly.

The response from the community will now be interesting. The Brown shooting has certainly been a divisive one around the country, and many people hailed Tavon Austin, Stedman Bailey, Kenny Britt, Jared Cook and Chris Givens' actions. Coach Jeff Fisher declined to comment, per Thomas, but did note that he wouldn't discipline them.