On Thursday, the National Football Association has announced the suspension of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice in his team's first two games of the American football league's latest season. Buzzfeed said that the suspension came after his offseason arrest on aggravated assault charges.
Rice's trouble with the NFL started when he had gotten into an alleged altercation with his then-fiancee Janay Palmer in Atlantic City. TMZ later published a grainy video supposedly documenting the altercation a week after the incident. The video showed Rice dragging his fiance's body out of an elevator after rendering her unconscious in an earlier fight. The video showed how Rice dropped his would-be wife to the floor face-first, then proceeded to kick her legs to move them away from the doors of the elevator. Afterwards, he then grabbed Palmer's waist and tried to pick her up halfheartedly until a security officer arrived to assist them.
Although the two had gotten married the day after Rice pleaded not guilty to third-degree aggravated assault in March, NFL, led by Commissioner Roger Goodell, decided to punish the player for violating the league's personal conduct policy. Apart from the game suspension, Rice will also be forced to forfeit over $700,000 in compensation for sitting out of the two games.
Philly.com said that the punishment was out of Goodell's usual hardhanded moves on players who have committed wrongdoing. Minnesota Vikings assistant coach Mike Priefer was fined three games for uttering a gay slur, while Seattle Seahawks quarterback Terrelle Pryor had to sit down five games for using a tattoo parlor while he was still in college. Eagles tackle Lane Johnson was suspended this week for using a performance-enhancing substance.
The website said in its report, "Recreational drug use, NCAA violations that predate a player's pro career, verbal insults - to the NFL, all of these, somehow, are worse than physically abusing a woman. And if Johnson is telling the truth that he inadvertently took a prescribed medication that is on the league's list of banned substances, then a player's honest mistake about what he can put into his body so he can perform on Sundays is also a more egregious act than Rice's alleged assault."
Twitter user @SoCaliSteph echoed the sentiments of human rights activists who frown upon Rice's suspension and wrote, "Thing is, if Ray Rice hadn't been taped and no charges filed, NFL would have done nothing. Domestic violence is not important to NFL."
