Text
provided below and via Deadspin.
We begin tonight with the unavoidable
and simple truth that, intentionally or by neglect, the Atlantic County
district attorney's office, the Baltimore Ravens, the National Football League
and Roger Goodell conducted a cover-up of Ray Rice's brutal assault on his then
fiancée on February 15. There is no other conclusion possible.
Each body, each leading individual
involved, came to a judicial conclusion about what had happened to Janay Palmer
and what should happen to Ray Rice. And each, through deception or
incompetence, misled the public, damaged the efforts of every man and every
woman seeking to merely slow down the murderous epidemic of domestic violence,
and made a mockery of the process by which those who batter those who they
claim to love, are be brought to justice.
And not one of them, not commissioner
Goodell, not NFL senior vice president Adolpho Birch, not NFL chief counsel
Jeff Pasch, not Baltimore team president Richard Cass, not Baltimore general
manager Ozzie Newsome, not assistant prosecutor Diane Rupert of Atlantic
County, New Jersey, not prosecutor Jim McClane, not superior court judge
Michael Donio, not Ray Rice himself, no matter what actions were taken today
against Rice nor what might be taken in the future, none of them have any
remaining credibility, and each must leave or be expelled from their current positions.
And despite the obsession of the
moment, it does not truly matter whether they had seen this video before today.
The league, the team, the prosecutors either white washed Ray Rice's brutal
assault without having seen this video, or they saw the video and white washed
Rice's brutal assault anyway.
I accuse prosecutors McLane and Rupert
and Judge Donio, even with the full weight of the law behind them, of failing
to seek or failing obtain or failing act upon that in-elevator video, of
failing to put Ray Rice in jail where he belongs.
The state of New Jersey must
immediately begin an inquiry into whether or not the failures of McClane and
Rupert and Donio are mere incompetence, or if they rose to the level of
criminal malfeasance.
I accuse president Cass and general
manager Newsome of Baltimore of failing to act internally after The
ludicrousness of the Rice two-game suspension should have become apparent, even
to them.
They have had six weeks to add a team
suspension to Rice's token league punishment, to try to make the scales of
justice slightly less out of all balance. They did nothing, until they
terminated Rice's contract today after all of them failed to get away it.
Mr. Casse and Mr. Newsome put the
meaninglessness of their own team's financial and on-field success ahead of the
safety and well-being not only of Janay Palmer, but of every woman in the
country now threatened by a man who, because of how they covered for Ray Rice,
is a little more more confident of he can get away with it.
I accuse Roger Goodell of conducting a
kangaroo court by interviewing Janay Palmer-Rice with Ray Rice present, in
contradiction of all recommended practices when dealing with victims of
domestic abuse, thus virtually guaranteeing that whatever testimony she gave them
of the events of February 15th, they had the validity of a video made by a
hostage with a gun to her head.
Putting Janay Palmer in a position to
plead for her husband's career, perhaps being at the risk of beaten again if
she failed, that Roger Goodell did.
Seek and act upon the videotape that
should have sent Ray Rice to jail without bail, that he did not do.
Commissioner Goodell, as I first said on this
program on August 1, must resign.
If he will not do so, NFL owners must
fire him, and fire senior vice president Birch, and chief counsel Pasch. Pasch,
of all people, should've known better than to put the victim on trial and
acquit without evidence,
Mr. Goodell's ineptitude has not merely
rendered this football season meaningless and irrelevant by contrast, it has
not only reduced supporting or watching football to a distasteful, even a
disrespectful act, but most importantly it has comforted the violent and
afflicted the victim.
His push to increase NFL punishment of
domestic abusers to roughly that one-third that of repeat pot smokers, his
decision today to suspend Rice indefinitely, after the Ravens had fired him,
are elements of classic tragedy, wherein the right thing is finally done only
after it's too late to matter.
Roger Goodell's existence, who he is,
what he has turned The NFL commissioner's office into, is now symbolized by Ray
Rice's brutal left hand striking Janay Palmer and striking her again. Mr.
Goodell is an enabler of men who beat women.
His position within the National
Football League is no longer tenable.
And I accuse Ray Rice of a brutal and
potentially deadly assault, followed not by admission and contrition, but by a
pious, self-serving, insincere, cynical devious, manipulative, unapologetic
performance to protect his job and his money at the expense of the truth, at
the expense the public, at the expense the next woman he brutalizes. He has
already had his second chance. This new video shows he had already squandered
it. Ray Rice must never be allowed back in a National Football League uniform.
And lastly, I accuse us, all of us,
executives, players, fans, reporters, of failing to draw a line in the sand
when one was needed most. Any games played by Baltimore without its executives
and the Commissioner having been dismissed, and without Ray Rice Being
permanently banned by the National football League, must be fully boycotted by
all of us. If not, we become accessories.
After the fact.
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