Pressure Grows on NFL Commissioner Over Ray Rice Assault Case
As US lawmakers requested details on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's actions and the leader of America's largest women's advocacy group called for Goodell to resign, the boss of the world's richest sports league maintained no one had seen the brutal video of suspended star Ray Rice punching ex-fiancee Janay Palmer in a casino elevator last February before celebrity website TMZ revealed it Monday.
- Agence France-Presse
- Updated: September 11, 2014 09:40 PM IST
Pressure mounted Wednesday on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell as the league investigated when a video of suspended star Ray Rice knocking out his then-fiancee was first seen by NFL officials.
As US lawmakers requested details on Goodell's actions and the leader of America's largest women's advocacy group called for Goodell to resign, the boss of the world's richest sports league maintained no one had seen the brutal video of Rice punching Janay Palmer in a casino elevator last February before celebrity website TMZ revealed it Monday.
"We did not see video of what took place inside the elevator until it was publicly released," Goodell said in a Wednesday memo to executives. "None of the law-enforcement entities we approached was permitted to provide any video or other investigatory material to us."
Citing an unnamed law-enforcement source, an Associated Press report said the video was sent in April to the league and its arrival was confirmed by a voicemail from a woman calling from a phone number at the league office.
"We have no knowledge of this," the NFL said in a statement. "We are not aware of anyone who possessed or saw the video before it was made public on Monday. We will look into it."
But TMZ reported later Wednesday, citing an unnamed NFL source, that no one at the league saw the video or received the video, including about 475 employees at the NFL headquarters in New York plus NFL Films in New Jersey and cable television's Los Angeles-based NFL Network.
Rice avoided jail time for the incident by agreeing in May to a pre-trial intervention program. In July, Goodell, who has guided the NFL since 2006, imposed only a two-game ban on Rice, one that was to have ended Friday.
Last month, Goodell said that he had given too soft a punishment, and toughened NFL penalties for domestic violence.
Only after video of Rice's brutal left hook went public did the Baltimore Ravens fire Rice, a star rusher who helped them win the 2013 Super Bowl, and Goodell suspend Rice indefinitely.
"The NFL has lost its way," said National Organization for Women president Terry O'Neill. "It doesn't have a Ray Rice problem. It has a violence against women problem.
"The only workable solution is for Roger Goodell to resign."
Goodell said Tuesday in an interview with CBS that he does not believe his job is in jeopardy over his handling of the Rice affair.
"I'm used to criticism. I'm used to that," Goodell said. "Every day, I have to earn my stripes."
US lawmakers want answers
Goodell's memo backed up his Tuesday comment that "no one in the NFL to my knowledge" saw the video of Rice's punch and said the NFL did not ask the now-closed Revel casino in Atlantic City for the video because obtaining such evidence would have been illegal interference in a criminal investigation.
"Information obtained outside of law enforcement that has not been tested by prosecutors or by the court system is not necessarily a reliable basis for imposing league discipline," Goodell said.
More than a dozen US lawmakers wrote open letters critical of Goodell.
US Senator Dean Heller, a Republican on a Senate Commerce subcommittee with jurisdiction over the NFL, pressed for details about how Goodell will "address the harm your league has inflicted on survivors of domestic violence going forward."
"Commissioner Goodell must understand the scope and severity of domestic abuse acts," Heller wrote. "Judging from his actions, it's time for the NFL to step its game up on this important matter.
"I am highly disappointed the NFL's reaction was only heightened once the public witnessed the elevator video. By waiting to act until it was made public you effectively condoned the action of the perpetrator himself."
NFL players set bad examples
NOW leader O'Neill noted San Francisco defender Ray McDonald faces domestic violence charges for striking his pregnant girlfriend, Carolina's Chris Hardy is playing while an appeal is pending on his conviction for assaulting his former girlfriend and sexual assault charges have been filed against NFL Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
"New leadership must come in with a specific charge to transform the culture of violence against women that pervades the NFL," she said.
"The example it is setting right now is simply unacceptable."