Baltimore Raves Terminate Ray Rice’s Contract
08 Sep, 2014
Ray Rice was let go by the Baltimore Ravens on Monday and suspended indefinitely by the NFL after a video was released that appears to show the running back striking his then-fiancee in February.
The grainy video, released by TMZ Sports, apparently shows Rice and Janay Palmer in an elevator at an Atlantic City casino. Each hits the other before Rice knocks Palmer off her feet and into a railing. An earlier TMZ video showed Rice dragging Palmer, now his wife, from the elevator at the Revel casino, which closed Sept. 2.
The Ravens said earlier Monday that they never saw the new video. Hours later, they sent out a one-sentence release:
“The Baltimore Ravens terminated the contract of RB Ray Rice this afternoon.”
The NFL also took action, saying on Twitter that Commissioner “Roger Goodell has announced that based on new video evidence that became available today he has indefinitely suspended Ray Rice.”
Coach John Harbaugh was expected to talk Monday night after practice.
The NFL suspended Rice for two games in July for domestic violence, a punishment at the time that received widespread criticism in different circles.
“We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Monday morning. “That video was not made available to us and no one in our office has seen it until today.”
Rice’s lawyer, Michael Diamondstein, declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press.
The 27-year-old Rice was charged with felony aggravated assault in the case, but in May he was accepted into a pretrial intervention program that allowed him to avoid jail time and could lead to the charge being purged from his record.
AP
Mentioned In This Post:
