NFL under fire for handling of Ray Rice case

The shocking video packed more than a horrific physical punch by a man on a woman.

The grainy security camera footage of American footballer Ray Rice knocking out his future wife Janay Palmer in an Atlantic City casino lift has exposed hypocrisy at the National Football League on its administration of player rules and caused a wave of outrage far beyond sports circles.

Until Monday, Rice, a running back for the Baltimore Ravens, was on suspension, missing two games, for punching Palmer in February, an incident which led to his arrest and indictment on aggravated assault charges. The charges were later dropped in favour of counselling. He was fined $529,411 (€410,000) for "conduct detrimental to the NFL" and due to return to play the Cleveland Browns on September 21st.

Then on Monday came the video. Celebrity news website TMZ released the disturbing footage online, showing Rice knocking his wife unconscious. In the lead-up to the punch, the couple are seen arguing with each other outside the lift with Palmer throwing a hand at Rice.

The argument continues in the lift with the woman moving towards the footballer before he hits her with a left-handed blow to her head, knocking her into a railing. Rice then drags his wife’s motionless body out of the lift. A longer, higher-quality version of the videotape of the incident, shown to the Associated Press yesterday, is reported to show the couple shouting obscenities at each other and Palmer appearing to spit at Rice before the player knocks her out.

After the video appeared, the Ravens fired Rice and the NFL suspended him indefinitely, heaping further pressure on the sports franchise that it had been far too lenient in its initial punishment of the 27-year-old one-time Superbowl and three-time Pro Bowl winner when the league has suspended players for entire seasons for marijuana use. Rice had been due to play 14 of this season's 16 games.

Footage had been previously been broadcast showing Rice dragging Palmer’s body from the lift but the new footage, showing the violent nature of the incident in graphic detail, changed everything.

“It’s something we saw for the first time today, all of us,” said Ravens coach John Harbaugh at a news conference on Monday. “ It changed things, of course. It made things a little bit different.”

It brought a sharp reversal for the Ravens and Harbaugh who had stood by Rice throughout the summer. On Tuesday, the team offered fans the option to exchange his jerseys at the Baltimore stadium’s stores.

The Ravens and the NFL said that they had not reviewed the footage recorded inside the lift before TMZ released it.

“We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator,” the NFL said on Monday. “That video was not made available to us and no one in our office has seen it until today.”

That a two-game suspension seemed to have been enough for the NFL has turned public anger and condemnation towards the organisation, with many commentators incredulous that the league did not see a copy of the video before deciding on Ray’s punishment.

“If NFL executives and Baltimore Ravens staff had never seen that tape before, there are only two reasons: willful blindness and the determination to maintain plausible deniability,” wrote Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins.

The video compounds problems for the NFL and its unpopular commissioner Roger Goodell, who had previously admitted that the league’s earlier punishment had not gone far enough. Announcing new penalties for domestic violence last month - a six-game suspension for a first offence and lifetime ban for a second - the NFL commissioner told the owners of the league’s 32 teams in a letter: “I didn’t get it right. Simply put, we have to do better. And we will.”

The response to the video and the league’s earlier punishment were scathing with former and current NFL players along with celebrities taking to social media to blast the player and the sports organisation.

Denver Broncos defensive lineman Terrance Knighton was among the most outspoken. “That man should be thrown out the (sic) the nfl and thrown into jail. Shame on those deciding his punishment,” he said.

“Your punishment for beating a woman is less than for smoking weed,” Hollywood actor Seth Rogen said in another tweet, tagging Goodell in the message.

Rice's wife Janay was a lone voice in support of her husband. She posted a message on her online Instagram page today, defending Rice and criticising the media and public reaction to the video for the price the couple are paying.

“No one knows the pain that the media and unwanted options (sic) from the public has caused my family,” she said. “To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible thing.”