Yes. It absolutely is cut-and-dried. In response to his fiancee pushing him, Ray Rice punched her twice, knocking her unconscious (and coming very near killing her or causing serious head injury). He then dragged her unconscious carcass out of the elevator like a bag of trash.
That's all there is to it. Nothing more. None of this "she apologized for starting it" (victim-shaming, woohoo!) bullshit, no "there are more layers to this," no. Ray Rice beat the tar out of a defenseless woman. Fuck him, fuck Goodell and fuck the Ravens.
And this is not an isolated incident. Dudes don't suddenly decide out of the blue to beat the shit out of their partner. The only reason Rice even got his initial (disgusting) slap on the wrist was because he was stupid enough to snap in an Atlantic City casino, where everything is on tape.
Yes, and yes.
In some jurisdictions the DA will prosecute domestic violence whether the victim participates in the prosecution or not.
They certainly have enough evidence of a serious crime being committed. This should be a law enforcement issue, not just an NFL issue.
Law enforcement already had its crack at the apple -- Atlantic County offered him a pre-trial diversion program, which is essentially a year of mandatory counseling. If he keeps his nose clean until next June, the charges will be dismissed.
And they wouldn't even have needed Janay to cooperate or testify; this would have been a matter of the State v. Rice. Any half-competent prosecutor could show those two videos to a jury, immediately rest the case, and get a conviction for assault in the first degree.
Just another failure in a mess full of disgusting failures, in this particular aspect on the part of the prosecutor and the judge who signed off on the diversion.
(By the way, the NFL's claim that all security for New Jersey casinos is handled by the New Jersey State Police is a bald-faced lie, in case anyone didn't figure that out yet.)
