Sports

/

ArcaMax

Sam McDowell: There's still some unknown about the Rashee Rice crash. But the known is inexcusable.

Sam McDowell, The Kansas City Star on

Published in Football

The known? Rice drove a Lamborghini Urus so recklessly Saturday evening, conveying a complete indifference for anyone other than himself, that we’re fortunate much of the resulting conversation has somehow been about what this means for his football future.

The difference between death and survival — for those inside his vehicle or any of the five others involved — was not a result of the action.

It is a result of luck.

A dashcam video appears to show the Urus, the vehicle West said was driven by Rice, and a Corvette attempting to pass cars in the left lane of the North Central Expressway. The Urus is out in front, the Corvette tailing behind. The Urus moves onto the left shoulder to try to pass a small car and instead hits the center median, causing a chain reaction of collisions involving multiple cars across multiple lanes of the road. Police officials told the Dallas Morning News the Corvette is also registered or leased to Rice.

It is an avoidable and inexcusable action — and, to be fair, West did not attempt to excuse it, nor did he imply that Rice has offered one.

West, who said he expects charges to be filed against Rice soon, emphasized on Thursday that Rice has “fully cooperated with the Dallas Police Department.”

 

Except that Rice missed the first step and lowest bar of cooperation: Stay at the scene.

Rice and the driver of the Corvette, who has not been identified, walked away in the aftermath of the crash, police officials have said. His departure leaves us free to wonder why he deemed that to be in his best interest. West was in a surprisingly and perhaps refreshingly sharing mood Thursday, but he declined to share that rationale.

The most haunting image, even without actually witnessing it, is one 27-year-old Kayla Quinn provided the Dallas Morning News: her 4-year-old son shaking and crying after their car was side-swiped.

Those are the lives Rice risked for the reward of speeding down the expressway. Those are the people from whom he walked away.

...continued

swipe to next page

©2024 The Kansas City Star. Visit kansascity.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus