Scandals & Feuds ·
Ravens Released Ray Rice After Elevator Video Emerged
The February 2014 incident had brought a two-game NFL suspension. In September, newly public footage was followed by Rice’s release and an indefinite suspension.
On September 8, 2014, the Baltimore Ravens terminated Ray Rice’s contract after footage from an Atlantic City casino elevator became public. The NFL then suspended him indefinitely. The incident was not new: the league had already imposed a two-game suspension over Rice’s conduct in February. What emerged that September was video from inside the elevator, appearing to show Rice striking his then-fiancée, Janay Palmer, and knocking her into a railing.
TMZ Sports released the footage. The Associated Press described it as grainy and reported that each appeared to hit the other before Rice knocked Palmer down. An earlier video had shown Rice dragging her from the elevator. By September, Palmer and Rice were married.
The February 15 incident had also brought criminal proceedings. Rice was charged with aggravated assault and, in May, accepted into a pretrial intervention program. The program allowed him to avoid trial and offered the possibility of clearing the charge if he met its conditions, including family counseling. The NFL’s discipline was separate: its personal-conduct policy did not require a criminal conviction before punishment.
On July 24, the league announced that Rice would miss the first two games of the regular season and lose a third game check. Commissioner Roger Goodell told him to continue counseling and said he believed Rice was sincere in wanting to move toward a healthy relationship and a successful career. Rice, in a statement released by the Ravens, said missing the games was his own fault. “My goal is to earn back the trust of the people, especially the children, I let down because of this incident,” he said.
The Ravens initially accepted the punishment. General manager Ozzie Newsome called it “fair” and said the night was not typical of the Rice the organization knew. But the two-game suspension drew widespread criticism. In an August 28 letter to NFL owners, Goodell acknowledged that his decision had called the league’s commitment to addressing domestic violence into question. “I didn’t get it right,” he wrote. The league adopted a six-game suspension for a first offense involving assault, battery, domestic violence or sexual assault with physical force.
The September footage brought a further change. The Ravens announced the termination in a single sentence, and the NFL said its indefinite suspension was based on “new video evidence that became available today.” Coach John Harbaugh said the decision to release Rice did not take long: “It’s something we saw for the first time today—it changed things.”
The league also said it had not previously seen the interior footage. “We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said. “That video was not made available to us and no one in our office has seen it until today.”
The next morning, Janay Rice responded on Instagram, describing the pain of renewed public attention. “To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible thing,” she wrote. “THIS IS OUR LIFE!”