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Janay Rice is the Real Victim

Ruth Marcus on

WASHINGTON -- Reader, she married him. The day after he was indicted on a charge of aggravated assault for knocking her unconscious.

I would say allegedly knocking her unconscious, but there's no doubt: Janay Palmer -- now Janay Rice -- was out cold after Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice unleashed his left hook on her.

Anyone who had bothered to go to the video of Rice dragging a limp Palmer would have known this -- back in February, when TMZ posted the first footage from the Atlantic City casino. This week's revelation, security video from inside the elevator, made undeniable that obvious precursor: the punch itself.

"It's something we saw for the first time today," Ravens coach John Harbaugh said Monday. "It changed things, of course. It made things a little bit different."

How, exactly? The feckless, enabling, see-no-evil National Football League and the feckless, enabling, see-no-evil Ravens management preferred not to ponder what it takes to knock out a human being. Instead, they wrist-slapped Rice with a two-game suspension, bespeaking the seriousness (not) with which they took the incident.

"The whole video needs to be reviewed," Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome said in February. Except it wasn't, and Newsome's comments back then help explain why. "Right now, I feel very good about his side of the story," he said of Rice.

 

Much of the latest commentary about Rice has focused on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and properly so. I'd add to the mix of villains the Atlantic County prosecutors who let Rice avoid a trial and possible jail time. Instead, Rice was allowed to participate in a pre-trial diversion program that features counseling and the chance to have the charge dropped and eventually expunged.

New Jersey, it seems, takes domestic violence less seriously than kicking your dog; those charged with cruelty to animals aren't eligible for the diversion program.

Another villain: Ravens management, which throughout the episode has underplayed the seriousness of Rice's conduct and engaged in a blame-the-victim defense, lumping Rice and Palmer together as co-perpetrators, in need of couples counseling.

"The two people, obviously they've got a couple of issues they have got to work through," Harbaugh observed. Excuse me, they don't have issues to work through. He's got an issue to deal with.

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