Recently uncovered emails show that Roger Goodell has been lying about the NFL’s attempts to obtain video of Ray Rice’s assault.
The jig appears to be up for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
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Goodell has said that the NFL attempted but failed to acquire video showing then-Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice assaulting his then-fiancée in February before the commissioner suspended Rice for two games prior to the 2014 NFL season.
TMZ ultimately posted the graphic video in September. The league maintained it was the first time they had seen the video and suspended Rice indefinitely.
However, E-mails uncovered by ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. show that the NFL’s stance on the matter simply isn’t true.
"On Sept. 10, Goodell wrote a memo to all 32 team owners — his bosses — and said the same, assuring them that “on multiple occasions, we asked the proper law enforcement authorities to share with us all relevant information, including any video of the incident.” He cited the “New Jersey State Police, the Atlantic City Police Department, the Atlantic County Police Department and the Atlantic County Solicitor’s Office.”But one day before Goodell sent that memo, the league’s lead investigator on the Rice matter had actually told the league’s director of security that he had never requested the inside-casino elevator video from the one law enforcement agency that actually had it, the Atlantic City Police Department: “Again, I never spoke to anyone at the casino or the police department about the tape,” NFL investigator Jim Buckley wrote in a Sept. 9 email to NFL executive vice president and chief security officer Jeffrey B. Miller. The last e-mail on the chain from Buckley says: “I never contacted anyone about the tape.”"
NFL fans have long suspected Goodell has been lying about the search for video of the assault and this latest report would seem to confirm all suspicions.
Simply put, this is a terrible look for Goodell and the NFL and it won’t be easy for them to re-gain the trust of fans anytime soon.
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