The National Football League’s handling of a domestic violence case is under renewed scrutiny after a graphic video emerged Monday, leading to the termination of the Baltimore Ravens star running back Ray Rice’s contract and his suspension from the league.
The video shows Rice punching his fiancée, who is now his wife, in the face, leaving her motionless on the floor of a hotel elevator in Atlantic City in February. He then dragged her unconscious body from the elevator.
Rice was charged with felony assault in March, but his wife, Janay Palmer, declined to testify. The charges were dropped and court-supervised counseling was ordered. Roger Goodell, the N.F.L. commissioner, disciplined Rice in July with a two-game suspension, a penalty that was widely criticized as too lenient.
Previously published video of the altercation was taken from a camera outside the elevator and showed only the moments after Rice hit Palmer. But the emergence of the new video, published by the website TMZ, raised questions about what the N.F.L. knew, and when. A league spokesman said “no one in our office has seen it until today,” but he did not respond to inquiries about whether any of the league’s investigators who do not work in the office had previously seen the video.
“What makes the N.F.L. look especially bad in this case is the sense that the only reason they suspended Ray Rice indefinitely was to save face, rather than to actually address or punish the problem at hand,” said S. Adam Brasel, a professor of marketing at Boston College. “Do people think the N.F.L. would have done the same if they got the footage internally rather than having the whole world see it on TMZ?”
The league enjoys unmatched popularity, with soaring TV ratings and billions of dollars in revenue. But it has been tarnished by several embarrassing issues in recent years, including homophobic and racist bullying.
Late last month, after an uproar over his handling of the Rice case, Goodell admitted that he had mishandled the case and announced new, tougher standards for players and league employees who are found to have committed domestic violence.
After saying for weeks that he had acted appropriately by suspending Rice for two games, Goodell said that in the future, any N.F.L. employee, including nonplayers, would be suspended for six games for a first offense of domestic violence and a minimum of a year for a second offense.
In a letter to team owners, he said he took responsibility “both for the decision and for ensuring that our actions in the future properly reflect our values. I didn’t get it right.”
He did not, however, revisit Rice’s suspension — until the video was posted Monday.
The Ravens had not previously disciplined Rice in any public way, and after the episode, the team said on Twitter: “Janay Rice says she deeply regrets the role that she played the night of the incident.” The post was deleted Monday afternoon.
Rice, with his wife at his side, apologized publicly in May. The Ravens’ coach, John Harbaugh, said he stood by Rice, his star running back, and Ravens fans gave Rice a loud ovation during a preseason game.
However, Harbaugh said Monday that the new video, which he said he was seeing for the first time, made things different.
“It changed things, of course,” Harbaugh said.
He added, “When someone you care about does wrong, and is faced with the consequences of doing wrong, and rightfully so, it is tough, it is hurtful.”
Goodell, who has wide discretion to penalize players for violating the league’s personal conduct policy, was condemned for giving Rice what many considered a light suspension, especially compared with harsher penalties for players who take performance-enhancing drugs. The N.F.L. received hundreds of phone calls in protest, and petitions with tens of thousands of signatures were collected.
The new video led to calls Monday from advocates for victims of domestic violence for Goodell to penalize Rice retroactively. Hours later, the Ravens announced Rice’s release on their Twitter account. Soon after, the league said it had indefinitely suspended Rice.
“Commissioner Roger Goodell has announced that based on the new video evidence that became available today, he has imposed an indefinite suspension on Ray Rice,” the N.F.L. said in a statement. Rice will have to apply to be reinstated.
Advocates applauded the actions taken Monday. “The Ravens have sent a strong message against domestic violence,” said Judy Harris Kluger, executive director for Sanctuary for Families, a nonprofit agency in New York that helps victims of domestic violence. “It was impossible to ignore or explain away.”
Over the next three years, Rice, the Ravens’ second career leading rusher and a three-time Pro Bowl player, was to receive $9.5 million in salary, $9 million in signing bonuses and an additional $5.2 million in performance bonuses, according to the website Spotrac.com. Contracts often include terms that allow teams to terminate a deal with a player if he acts in a way that is detrimental to the team.
The N.F.L. Players Association did not return calls for comment.
The league may have to overhaul the way it investigates player malfeasance, sports lawyers said Monday. A spokesman for the N.F.L. said in July that Goodell took his cue in the investigation in part from law enforcement officials who had access to more information than the league.
But Goodell has also said that the N.F.L. should be held to a higher standard.
“The N.F.L. is going to have to review its due diligence in this case,” said Mark Conrad, who teaches sports law at Fordham University. “Some have said the league should treat it as a criminal matter, but it’s a very public league, and if they want to keep their many constituents happy, they are going to have to find a new way of doing it.”
Rutgers University, where Rice played, also distanced itself from him on Monday, removing a video on the team’s website.
The university’s athletic director, Julie Hermann, called the TMZ.com video “very disturbing” and said it “serves to reinforce the ongoing need to educate and bring awareness to the issue of domestic violence.”