After public comment that focused on racism, free speech, equality, sacrifice and heroes, the North Smithfield Town Council voted, 3-2, to request that all town departments refrain from buying Nike products.

NORTH SMITHFIELD, R.I. — After more than an hour of public comment that focused on racism, free speech, equality, sacrifice and heroes, the Town Council on Monday voted, 3-2, to request that all town departments refrain from buying Nike products.

Approval of the nonbinding resolution amounted to a symbolic rebuke of free-agent NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other players kneeling during the national anthem at games to protest the killing of unarmed black men by police nationwide — and Nike's recent endorsement of Kaepernick.

RELATED: ACLU: North Smithfield Nike boycott vote is ‘shameful’

Because it was "new business," the Nike resolution fell near the end of a long agenda on Monday night, but public comment began right after the Pledge of Allegiance. At the end of the pledge, a group in the back emphasized the final words, especially the last two: “with liberty and justice FOR ALL.”

At least 20 people spoke against the resolution.

“Colin Kaepernick is using his First Amendment right to free speech to bring attention to the injustices faced by people of color. It’s that simple,” said former Town Council and School Committee member Melissa Flaherty.

“People who choose to write it off as disrespect of soldiers or police in general are missing the point,” Flaherty said. “Our town that is 96.6-percent white should really try to understand this issue better.”

She took issue with Town Council President John Beauregard’s reported view that Nike was perpetuating the idea that the police are racist. “No, Mr. Beauregard, “your action in putting this item in the agenda perpetuates that narrative.”

Her comments were punctuated by cheers and sustained applause.

Erin Huntley said the resolution was “based on a thinly veiled racist ideology.” Adopting the resolution would send a message that “freedom and justice are so fragile in this country that you have to implement a sneaker policy to protect it.”

She urged the town to stand up and “refuse to make government resolutions based on the ideology of intolerance.”

Stephen Hoyle Jr., who joined the Marines in 1966, noted that Kaepernick lost his career as a football player, and his wealth and standing. “He did not throw that all away to disrespect the country that I love,” Hoyle said.

Even before the meeting, the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island asked the council to reject a resolution. "Just don’t do it," the ACLU wrote in a letter to the council.

Beauregard, who had proposed the resolution, said it was “a simple request, that’s all it is.”

“This is not about anyone taking a knee,” he said. “You might be surprised, but I support their right” to express their views. “Just because I do not believe in his cause does not mean I do not believe in his rights,” he said of Kaepernick.

He said he wasn’t asking people to burn their Nike gear. Having been a state trooper for 25 years, he said, he objected to Kaepernick’s “derogatory comments about police,” and his financial support of “someone who murdered a police officer” and has fled the country.

The resolution says “102 police officers have been killed in the line of duty so far this year” in the United States. Beauregard said a police officer was killed Sunday night. “That officer killed last night sacrificed everything,” he said.

Council Vice President Paul Zwolenski had said he would ask the School Committee to consider the issue. Councilwoman Claire O’Hara, describing her family as “in the League of Nations,” responded to the idea of Black Lives Matter by saying “All lives matter.”

Beauregard, Zwolenski and O’Hara voted in favor of the resolution.