I don’t think anyone had any doubts about what happened behind those closed doors, no doubt about it – but until the video was made public today, it certainly wasn’t a visceral image. I guess it was the other shoe dropping – my true frustration was waiting for something like this to surface. I feel awful for Rice’s wife – I really do (especially given the fact that she’s in a FUBAR relationship, beyond getting beat up by her now-husband).
However, my personal issue with the incident is that the Ravens (and the NFL) seem to have gone to great pains to have make it look like they first saw the video today as well. Of course Rice’s actions captured on the video are unforgivable; the team and league’s (non-) responses to it somehow go beyond even that: it’s dishonesty, on an institutional level, regarding the very serious issue of domestic violence.
As other wags have noted, the Ravens and the NFL were fine with giving Rice a two-game suspension – until the complete video was made available to the public at large. It appears to me that the Ravens franchise or the NFL (or both) was attempting to hide from the the public the truth about a woman getting knocked out by one of their star players (because if Rice had been on the Ravens’ practice squad rather than one of the league’s superstars, you can absolutely bet that he’d have been booted from the team and the league as soon as the first video was released).
What a nice, sweet world you must live in. I urge you not to read [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=729787\) or commentary about the case on many, many other sites. Or the post upthread about Ravens fans cheering for Rice at camp. Spoiler alert: a lot of people figured she must’ve deserved it or at least started it. I can’t say I understood why you held out for mitigating circumstances, brickbacon, but I appreciate that you’re being upfront about it after seeing this. I assure Gordon Urquhart that other people will not revise their opinions.
What happened in that video is totally unacceptable on every level. There can be no excuse for it. However, it has me wondering…
Rice is one of those players whose job is to run the ball up the middle - meaning, he gets pounded every time he touches the ball - that’s his job. I wonder how much damage has happened to his brain - and has that damage affected his personality? I recall some of the stories about brain issues with former NFL players - sudden violent episodes for an otherwise “good guy”. Of course, the NFL would like questions like that to go away, but still?
Not defending Rice at all in this case, but makes me wonder if there are underlying reasons for his outburst of violence.
Well, I guess my reasoning at the time was partly the rumors that she attacked him and spit in his face, partly the fact that only half of the tape was released, partly her being arrested as well, and partly her seeming desire to take on some of the responsibility during the press conference and the meeting with Goodell. That said, I was clearly and unequivocally wrong.
I acknowledge that I used the term “anyone” in a much too overarching manner – a phrase like “with half a brain and/or conscience” would’ve been appropriate.
Even with this new video evidence, there are still people who believe that Palmer deserved what happened to her. It is not, in fact, a nice nor sweet world in which I or anyone else lives. But it is a little nicer and sweeter now that Rice, however belatedly, has been shown the door, and that the Ravens and the NFL have some 'splaining to do.
Well they finally got it right, with the cut and indefinite suspension, but this looks really bad for the Ravens and the NFL. What did they expect the video to actually show? He knocked her out for God-sakes. That’s been known for months. So they wait until the video is made public to take action…poor handing of a bad situation.
She wasn’t married to him when this happened and yet decided to marry him pretty much immediately after he pummeled her, and then tried to jump on the career-grenade by accepting some responsibility for his behavior. The whole thing looks like PR damage control. “Hurry up and marry her so she won’t have to testify against you. It will look good to the public and secure your career.”
The Ravens are shifting into “Let’s erase the history” mode now.
They have deleted from their Twitter feed the May 23 tweet that said:
And on the team’s website, you can no longer view the video of Ravens fans cheering for Rice at the team’s practice in late July.
And can we please dispense with the shibboleth that she must just be a gold-digger who only stayed with him after the incident because he’s an NFL player? It’s incredibly offensive. Studies into domestic violence show that, while economic security can be a factor for some women who remain with their abusers, the whole issue is much more complicated than that. Plenty of battered women stay with their poor and working-class abusers too.
I would call her a gold digger to her face. It’s quite obvious that they agreed to marry to make sure prosecution of Rice would be almost impossible. She has her hands on half his money now. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ray Rice went out and bought her Kobe Bryant style bling.