ANALYSIS/OPINION:
If we had a video of every time a man strikes a woman in this country on any given Saturday night, martial law would be declared.
Abusers would be called war criminals, because, make no mistake about it, there is a war on women being fought in homes, on the streets, and, apparently, in casino elevators in Atlantic City, as we have now seen for our very eyes with the release by TMZ of the video of Ray Rice knocking out his then-fiancee, Janay Palmer.
If it were any other class of people, it would be called a war. Check the police log of any town on any Saturday night. They are filled with domestic violence incidents.
Women are knocked out, just like Janay Palmer was in February in the elevator of the Revel Casino Hotel in Atlantic City — which just closed its doors. They are beaten, bloodied and bruised — all documented in police reports, like the one Atlantic City police filed about Janay Palmer’s beating. Charges are filed, like the aggravated assault charges that were filed against Rice — the very day Palmer married her abuser and became Mrs. Ray Rice
The reports become court documents, the cases become statistics, and, if you are talented enough with rich and powerful friends, everyone tries to move on, like the Baltimore Ravens and the National Football League tried to do after Rice was arrested and charged.
SEE ALSO: Players, celebrities react: ‘Ray Rice is a piece of garbage’
But then the video surfaced Monday of the punch that Rice landed that knocked out his future wife, and suddenly the police report became real.
Before that, it was as if no one was taking the beating seriously. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell certainly didn’t seem to when he gave Rice a pathetic two-game suspension for the incident.
“Ray Rice has been accountable for his actions,” Goodell said last month, defending the punishment. “He recognizes he made a horrible mistake that is unacceptable by his standards, by our standards, and he’s got to work to re-establish himself. The criminal justice system, as you know, put him in a diversionary program with no discipline, and we felt it was appropriate to have discipline and to continue counseling programs and to continue our educational work.
“And I was also very impressed with Ray in the sense that Ray is not only accepting this issue in saying ’I was wrong’ but he’s saying I want to make a powerful difference in this area,” Goodell said. “And I think you heard from him yesterday, and he’s a young man that really understands the mistake he made and he’s out and bound and determined to make a positive difference.”
What changed since then? The NFL — which now has suspended Rice “indefinitely” — is claiming that Rice wasn’t honest with them about the details surrounding the incident, but what exactly did it think happened when the initial video showed him dragging his fiance out of the elevator?
What happened was the NFL was shamed and disgraced by what we saw in that video released by TMZ because the police report came to life.
SEE ALSO: Ray Rice released by Ravens after video shows him punching fiancee
Goodell has a wife and two daughters. How does he look them in the eye after this?
The Ravens didn’t seem to treat the beating seriously. They issued no punishment of their own, and, when the NFL handed down its two-game suspension, hailed it as justice served.
“While not having Ray for the first two games is significant to our team, we respect the league’s decision and believe it is fair,” Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome told reporters.
Ozzie Newsome has a wife and two daughters. How does he look them in the eye after this?
“We always said from the beginning that the circumstances would determine the consequences,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh told reporters last month. “There are consequences when you make a mistake like that. I stand behind Ray, he’s a heck of a guy, he’s done everything right since. He makes a mistake, he’s going to have to pay a consequence.
“I think that’s good for kids to understand it works that way, that’s how it works, that’s how it should be,” Harbaugh said. “We’ll move forward, and the next guy will have to step up and Ray will be back when the time comes. It’s not something that we’re dwelling on, we’re not worrying about it, we’re just moving forward.”
Monday, after the TMZ video was released, the Ravens cut Rice.
What changed since a month before, when Harbaugh called the incident a lesson for the kids? Isn’t Rice a ’heck of a guy’ anymore?
John Harbaugh is a Christian speaker. When he spoke to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes last year, he told the crowd, “You’ve got to decide what’s important.”
What was important for John Harbaugh? How can he look at a crowd of Christians again and tell them that what turned out to be important for him was a video — a TMZ video?
• Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 radio and espn980.com.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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