St Louis Ferguson
St. Louis Rams wide receiver Stedman Bailey and wide receiver Tavon Austin and tight end Jared Cook and wide receiver Chris Givens and wide receiver Kenny Britt put their hands up to show support for Michael Brown before a game against the Oakland Raiders at the Edward Jones Dome. Reuters

The St. Louis Rams have denied that they apologised to the St. Louis County police following their players' symbolic "hands up, don't shoot" gesture in solidarity with slain black teenager Michael Brown.

The gesture seemingly protested the shooting of the teenager by police officer Darren Wilson and the decision by the St. Louis County Grand Jury not to indict Wilson.

The St. Louis Police Officers Association condemned the act, saying that the players "chose to ignore the mountains of evidence released from the St. Louis County Grand Jury".

A Rams official spoke to the St. Louis police after the incident but both parties disagree on what was said in that conversation.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar circulated an email to his staff in which he claimed that the Rams' chief operating officer (COO) called to apologise for the incident.

"I received a very nice call this morning from Mr. Kevin Demoff of the St. Louis Rams who wanted to take the opportunity to apologise to our department on behalf of the Rams for the "Hands Up" gesture that some players took the field with yesterday," Belmar wrote, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The spokesman for the Rams said that Belmar's claims are untrue. "We did not apologise," Artis Twyman told CNN.

The Rams released a statement which said they had "positive discussions" with Belmar "during which we expressed our respect for their concerns surrounding yesterday's game."

The Rams' denial caused the St. Louis County police to take to Twitter to display their anger at what had transpired.

"Apology: "expression of regret for not being able to do something" @kdemoff: "I regretted any offense their officers may have taken,"" they tweeted Monday night.

Despite the disagreement, further talks are expected to take place between Rams officials and police leaders from St. Louis following "productive but very preliminary" discussions, according to a statement from the St. Louis Police Officers Association and the St. Louis County Police association.

"We made some progress today and we had a healthy interaction with the Rams," the association's business manager, Jeff Roorda, said in a statement.

"We feel strongly that they better understand our perspective and the perspective of the law-abiding citizens that support law enforcement."

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