NFL official tells Senate 'we failed' on domestic violence – live

An update on the Adrian Peterson appeal hearing: it has adjourned and will resume on Thursday, ESPN reports:

The appeal hearing for Adrian Peterson ended Tuesday after more than three hours and will resume Thursday.

Peterson did not testify, but Harold Henderson, who heard the appeal, allowed the suspendedMinnesota Vikings running back to make a statement, sources tell ESPN. The content of Peterson’s statement is unknown.

Read the full piece here.

“We recognize that we have to break the culture of silence” on domestic violence, Vincent says.

Senator Marco Rubio is talking about the importance of the NFL in his life. He says one of his sons looked up to Ray Rice specifically.

Rubio: “Whatever that video showed, he already had admitted to.... What is the process-- because I know what would’ve happened to Ray Rice had he tested positive for steroids... is this a completely arbitrary process whereby the commissioner sets punishment based on how he feels? What is the criteria they use to impose the punishment?”

Vincent does not describe a system of rules. Instead he seems to say that if there is an arbitrariness problem, it’s the players’ union fault, because the players’ association has successfully appealed suspensions the league has handed out. “The commissioner right now has the ability to either impose or designate an individual to see the case or hear the case... we’re looking at again severe discipline,” Vincent says.

Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey asks Troy Vincent why the NFL should have a tax-exempt status that major league baseball for example does not have. “That money could be used to invest in [domestic violence] programs,” Booker says.

Vincent says all revenue in the NFL is taxed and the league does not “enjoy” a tax-exempt status, in a strenuously technical distinction.

Vincent says the football commissioner, Roger Goodell, would like to have a new personal conduct policy in place by the Super Bowl, which is to be played on 1 February 2015.

“The financial reality is that words and promises are a lot [less] difficult than action,” senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut says. “I’m looking for a way to impose accountability... an accountability that means something in dollars and cents.”

He points out that pro sports teams benefit from huge subsidies including anti-trust exemptions that allow them to negotiate together.

“That anti-trust exemption should be contingent on doing the right thing,” Blumenthal says. He’s threatening a regulatory slap.

Torre talks about domestic violence in his home growing up, and how he came to establish a foundation to combat the problem, named “Margaret’s Place” for his mom.

“I didn’t find out until later in life that a lot of my insecurities came from what was going on that home, because my dad was abusing my mom,” Torre says.

Vincent repeats his assessment of the NFL’s failure on domestic violence. “We failed to punish, to hold accountable.”

He poses the rhetorical question, “When is it the appropriate time to take someone off the field?” and asserts that the league is more aggressive about it than the players’ association.

“We strongly disagree that there needs to be a felony or conviction to remove someone off the field,” Vincent says.

Senator Claire McCaskill says pro teams have off-duty cops who are huge fans who work with them and help fix problems “when they find out one of your guys is in trouble.”

McCaskill says the leagues don’t take responsibility. “That’s how the NFL got in trouble,” she says. “You didn’t see it as [your] responsibility to ask the question, is there another video and do I need to see it?”

The MLB commissioner, Bud Selig, has never sanctioned a player for domestic violence, McCaskill says.

Teri Patterson of the NFL players’ association has a back-and-forth with Senator Dean Heller of Nevada. He challenges her for seeming to defend weak sentences in domestic violence cases.

“We do not condone domestic violence. What we do is defend players and defend the process,” Patterson says.

Heller asks her what kind of sentence is appropriate when a player knocks his wife (or, presumably, fiancée) unconscious.

“I don’t know that that was appropriate,” Patterson says. “What we think is inappropriate is” arbitrary application of justice.

Vincent is asked, How is it that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell did not know there was a second camera in the elevator at the time of his meeting with Rice? (Initial footage to emerge showed Rice dragging his then-fiancée from an elevator; later video emerged that showed Rice hitting her.)

The question is: How is it that Goodell claims not to have seen the video before handing out a meager two-game suspension to Rice?

“We failed,” Vincent says. “The commissioner failed to impose the proper discipline in the Ray Rice case in the beginning.”

Senator Thune follows up: “The question was, the second video, how do you not know that?”

Vincent implies the league didn’t wait to round up a second video because the first one was so bad. “The first video, heartless, gutless...” he says. There was enough to move forward with punishment from the first video, is the reasoning he offers.

Testifying last is special counsel for the NHL players’ association, Steve Fehr. He apologizes for the absence of his boss, who had longstanding overseas commitments, he says.

Hockey is next. Jessica Berman, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of the NHL, is testifying.

She says the NHL has strict “policies practices and procedures” of the “off-ice conduct of its players”. The league provides annual training to players on social issues generally and domestic abuse specifically, she says. They have a rookie orientation program which includes discussion of domestic violence. In addition, she say, a collective bargaining agreement through 2020 grants the league and individual clubs the authority to discipline players.

“We believe it provides the league with adequate authority,” Berman says of the agreement.

She alludes to the recent indefinite suspension of NHL player Slava Voynov after his arrest on suspicions of domestic violence.

The NBA is next. Kathleen Behrens, Executive Vice President, Social Responsibility & Player Programs, testifies.

It’s Behrens’s turn to make an excuse for her boss. “Commissioner Adam Silver regrets that he could not be here.” He’s leading NBA owners and executives on a long-planned trip to India this week, she says.

And then we hear from the executive director of the NBA players’ union, Michele Roberts. She says the league recognized before “recent events” that the topic needed to be explored.

The NBA is adding new safeguards with a focus on prevention and counseling, she says.

Up next is Virginia Seitz, counsel for the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Rockefeller gives her a hard time for the absence of the director of the players’ association. She says he’s chairing an annual meeting.

Seitz says the league has implemented case-by-case treatment for players and families touched by domestic violence, and players may be disciplined for just cause, including any conduct that violates law.

It’s a legalistic statement.

Rockefeller thanks Torre. He says the senators have a vote at 4pm. “So that puts pressure on all of us to get with it,” he says.

There were sympathetic murmurs in the room as NFL vice president Troy Vincent struggled to hold back tears when describing his own experience of domestic abuse as a child, writes Guardian Washington correspondent Paul Lewis (@paullewis):

Vincent was described how he and his brother watched his mother beaten unconscious to explain how he could relate to the victims of domestic abuse in the country when his voice cracked. “We saw how she struggled to seek help, and find the voice and courage to say ‘no more’.” The room was silent as Vincent sought to regain his composure.

He struggled twice more during his opening remarks, including when he said wearing the NFL uniform was “a privilege, it is not a right”.

“Every member of the NFL community must embrace this unique leadership role that we play in our society,” he said.

Joe Torre, the former Yankees manager and now executive vice president of operations for Major League Baseball, testifies. He says that he too grew up in a house marred by domestic violence.

He says Major League Baseball is putting in place new measures to fight domestic violence and violence against women. Initiatives include meetings between league officials and victims groups. “They believe and we agree that sports leagues can make a difference,” Torre says.

A San Francisco-based group called Futures Without Violence is working with the league to fight domestic violence, he says.

The NFL players’ association has sent a representative after all – Teri Patterson, Deputy Managing Director of the National Football League Players’ Association, is testifying now. She was not listed on earlier versions of lists of witnesses to testify.

Rockefeller, the committee chair, chides her association from seeking to avoid the hearing. “I just have to note... that there was an enormous amount of pressure...from people you work with... for us not to have this hearing. ... This openness is not as commonly held a process as I would like.”

Patterson calls the suspension of Ray Rice “arbitrary.”

The “commissioner’s arbitrary discpline” in the case was overturned, she notes. “This current system, run unilaterally by the NFL, does not work.”

“The NFL refuses to commit to collective bargaining,” she says.

“When you’re worried more about getting back on the field instead of stopping abuse, your priorities are out of order,” says Republican senator Dean Heller of Nevada.

“This committee wants to know what you’re going to do to take a stand.”

Thune notes that the committee also investigated steroid use in baseball ten years ago. He paints it as a proud legacy, leaving unmentioned questions at the time about whether government attention and money should have been spent to fix pro baseball.

Thune says the heads of players’ associations are not present except for the NBA.

Ranking member John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, is up. He describes his intense sports fandom as a boy. “All of us in this country have a tremendous admiration for people who succeed at that level, and it is incredible influence and power” that athletes have, he says.

Thune says the footage of the Ray Rice elevator incident was “sickening” and the “NFL sent a mixes message to millions of fans” with its initial tepid response of a two-game suspension.

“This is a conversation that needs to take place,” Thune says.

“The leagues’ records have not been good,” Rockefeller says. He says the leagues have done “little or nothing” in response to domestic violence convictions.

“It has to stop. And that’s what we’re hear for. To talk about it, and to move forward.”

Committee chairman John D Rockefeller IV opens the hearing. He says that sports is such a big deal in US culture that over Thanksgiving many Americans were probably more interested in football than the turkey. He says kids look up to athletes.

He says he doesn’t want to hear about how domestic violence is a society-wide problem and not unique to sports. “Of course it’s a societal problem. And it’s a grievous one ... but as a nation we have a responsibility to collectively ... address this terrible problem.

“When a celebrity athlete is charged with domestic violence, it uniquely reverberates throughout our society in fascinating ways.”

The Guardian’s Paul Lewis is in the room:

The hearing is scheduled to start within five minutes. You can watch it live on the website of the commerce, science and transportation committee.

The witness list for today’s hearing includes Joe Torre, the former manager of the New York Yankees and now executive vice president of operations for Major League Baseball.

Another of the witnesses, Troy Vincent, an NFL vice president, figures prominently in the appeals case of Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson. Peterson made an audio tape of Vincent giving what Peterson believed to be assurances of an abbreviated suspension, with credit for time served. The league contends Vincent never gave such an assurance.

Notably absent from Capitol Hill today is any representative of the NFL players’ association, an important voice on behalf of athletes in relations with the league.

Other witnesses today include:

• Virginia Seitz, Counsel, Major League Baseball Players Association (MLB)
  
• Kathleen Behrens, Executive Vice President, Social Responsibility & Player Programs, National Basketball Association (NBA)
• Michele Roberts, Executive Director, National Basketball Players Association
• Jessica Berman, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, National Hockey League (NHL)
• Steve Fehr, Special Counsel, National Hockey League Players’ Association
  

The reinstatement of disgraced NFL running back Ray Rice and an appeal by suspended running back Adrian Peterson were to take center stage at a Senate hearing on Tuesday, as sports officials were called to Capitol Hill to answer questions about domestic violence and professional sports.

Rice was reinstated on Friday after winning his appeal of an indefinite suspension he was given as a result of a February incident in which he knocked his then-fiancee unconscious in an Atlantic City casino elevator. Peterson is appealing a months-long suspension imposed after he admitted to beating and injuring his four-year-old son.

Today’s Senate hearing, titled “Addressing Domestic Violence in Professional Sports,” aims to investigate league rules for punishing domestic violence and measures for preventing it. Officials from the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League were scheduled to testify. Players’ representatives also will testify, although the NFL players’ association “refused to send a representative”, according to the committee.

We’ll have rolling coverage of the hearing here, in addition to bringing you what news may emerge from a hearing in the Peterson appeal today in New York.