The Baltimore Ravens terminated running back Ray Rice's contract on Monday after a graphic video emerged of him punching his former fiance, who is now his wife, in a hotel elevator in Atlantic City in February. The video raised fresh questions about NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's handling of the situation; in July, the NFL suspended Rice for two games.
The team, which had not previously disciplined Rice in any public way, announced Rice’s release on its Twitter account on Monday afternoon. Shortly afterward, Goodell announced that Rice had been suspended from the NFL indefinitely.
TMZ published the video today on its website. It showed Rice and Janay Palmer, in an elevator, where Rice punched her. He then dragged her unconscious body from the elevator.
The release of the video triggered outrage against the league and Goodell. Previously published video of the incident was taken from a camera outside the elevator. Rice was charged with felony assault in March, but after Janay Rice declined to testify against her husband, charges were reduced to court-supervised counseling.
After the episode, the Ravens said on Twitter: “Janay Rice says she deeply regrets the role that she played the night of the incident.” Rice, with his wife at his side, apologised publicly.
Rice's coach, John Harbaugh, said he stood by his star running back. Rice and Palmer also met privately with Goodell, who said he suspended Rice for two games because of his contrition and because the charges against him were dropped.
Goodell’s penalty was immediately and loudly criticised by women’s advocates and even NFL players who said the league was not treating the issue of domestic violence seriously enough. The NFL received hundreds of phone calls in protest, and petitions with tens of thousands of signatures were collected.
Some players said the two-game suspension was too light compared with the full-year suspensions that some players received for violating the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy. While Goodell controls suspensions involving violations of the league’s personal conduct policy, he has no say in cases involving recreational drugs and performance-enhancing drugs. Those penalties were established by the league and the players association.
At the end of August, a month after his initial decision, Goodell reversed course. In a letter to team owners, he said he took responsibility “both for the decision and for ensuring that our actions in the future properly reflect our values. I didn’t get it right.”
Goodell said that in the future, any NFL employee, including nonplayers, would be suspended for six games for a first offense of domestic violence and a minimum of a year for a second offense. The more explicit video, though, raises questions about what information Goodell reviewed before deciding to suspend Rice and whether he took the issue seriously enough. The league has said Goodell took his cue in part from law enforcement officials, who had access to more information than the league.
Brian McCarthy, a spokesman for the NFL, said: “We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator. That video was not made available to us, and no one in our office has seen it until today.”
But several reporters, including Peter King of Sports Illustrated in July, have reported that officials from the NFL and the Ravens had seen the more graphic video from inside the elevator.
Michael Diamondstein, a lawyer who represents Rice, declined to comment. The NFL has security personnel who compile their own reports. But Goodell based some of his decision on his interview with Rice and Palmer, and their reaction in the wake of the scandal.
"I think what's important here is that Ray has taken responsibility for this," Goodell said to reporters in Canton, Ohio, at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, at the beginning of August. "He's been accountable for his actions. He recognises he made a horrible mistake, that it is unacceptable, by his standards and by our standards." New York Times Service
