Nearly four years after Ray Rice was caught assaulting his partner on video, the league only provides lip service to violence against women
Before Robert Mueller investigated Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election, he investigated the National Football League’s handling of the Baltimore Ravens’ Ray Rice, who in 2014 knocked out his then-fiancee at an Atlantic City casino. Mueller issued a 65-page report in January 2015, offering a number of steps the league could have taken to investigate the incident and those it could take in the future. Almost four years later, it’s debatable whether the NFL heeded any of Mueller’s advice, a state of affairs that has been highlighted by high-profile cases in the past month. And the reasons for the NFL’s inaction point back to profit and apathy.
Perhaps the most striking case is that of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Kareem Hunt, who was caught on a video published by TMZ last week shoving and kicking a 19-year-old woman. The Chiefs and the NFL had known about the incident (which was not domestic violence as the woman in question was not Hunt’s partner) since it had occurred in February, but the player had not faced any discipline. The Chiefs took Hunt at his word that he had nothing to do with it, while the NFL did not speak to Hunt or the woman he assaulted and told the Chiefs to stop pursuing video. It was only after the video surfaced on TMZ that the NFL placed him on the exempt list (players on the list cannot practice with their teams but are still paid) and the Chiefs cut him loose. Hunt was one of the most effective running backs in the league, and it’s not outlandish to wonder whether the Chiefs would have stuck with a less talented player for so long.
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