The NFL and Baltimore Ravens are sticking with their story — they claim that they never saw the inside the elevator video of Ray Rice assaulting Janay Palmer until it was released by TMZ on Monday morning. Of course, that completely contradicts what was reported by guys like Sports Illustrated’s Peter King and notably ESPN’s Chris Mortensen over the summer.
Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti issued a statement to season ticket holders on Tuesday apologizing for the team’s failure to watch the Rice video:
We contacted the casino management and asked if there was video of the incident from inside the elevator that we could see. The casino would not share such video. We asked the local New Jersey police and the police refused as well. We asked the prosecutor’s office and that office refused. It was our understanding at that time that Ray’s attorney had not yet seen the video. NFL officials had been informed, and we know they were also trying to retrieve and/or see the video.
ProFootballTalk.com’s Mike Florio writes that the Ravens could have viewed the tape from Rice’s lawyer, who had a copy of it as part of the investigation.
Barry Petchesky of Deadspin writes that Mort “reported on the contents of the video, based on what his sources had told him.”
"Ray Rice strikes her twice, and her head hits the rail."
Petchesky posted this audio from a radio interview Mortensen did back in July:
If the NFL hadn’t seen the video, how did Mortensen’s sources within the league know exactly what happened before it was publicly released?
Goodell’s a liar and his pants are on fire. Shame.
If that is the entire audio clip of Mort then you need to change your reporting. He didn’t say his NFL sources told him what happened, he said his sources. Mort, like the NFL, could have asked Revel employees for the video or asked them to say what the tape shows. Mort could have been referring to those people as his sources. Of course, the sad thing is that the NFL couldn’t be bothered to ask Revel for the tape.
In the bigger picture, the NFL (and really all the major sports) need to sit down and figure out a fair way to handle allegations of violence against women, time frames for handing down the punishments (when alleged or when convicted), and the amount of games the suspension will be. Some will say the NFL already did this with their new 6 game suspension for the first offense and then a lifetime ban for the second. But, obviously, with suspending Rice indefinitely, they are trashing their own recently approved policy.
Announce you are re-revising your rules with input from women’s groups and get it “right”. Oh, and, NFL, stop pretending that you actually wanted to see the tape. You didn’t want to see it because it might cause pressure to suspend a fairly popular player more than the customary 2 games for this type of offense. I’ll even give you a free way to spin it. You didn’t want to rely on video for determining the length of suspension because you know that in the future you won’t have video for most offenses. To be emotionally swayed by the graphic nature of what domestic violence looks like can unfairly lead to harsher punishments of those unfortunate enough to have the episode caught on camera and so we made the mistake of not pursuing the video as aggressively as we should. That’s the way to spin it but I would advise really just telling the truth and only you know what that is.
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