WASHINGTON — The latest development in the discipline case of running back Ray Rice comes from an “Outside the Lines” report on ESPN that the Baltimore Ravens had full knowledge of the Feb. 15 elevator incident just hours after it occurred.
“Outside the Lines” interviewed more than 20 sources over the past 11 days including team officials, current and former league officials, NFL Players Association representatives and associates, advisers and friends of Rice, ESPN reports.
Interviewees found “a pattern of misinformation and misdirection employed by the Ravens and the NFL” since that February night when Rice knocked out his then-fiancee with a left hook at the Revel Hotel Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
According to the report, the Ravens’ director of security, Darren Sanders, reached an Atlantic City police officer by phone shortly after the elevator incident. After watching the surveillance video of the couple, the officer (who told Sanders he also happened to be a Ravens fan) described in detail to Sanders what he saw on the footage.
ESPN says Sanders then “quickly relayed” the video’s contents to team executives in Baltimore, unknowingly starting a seven-month situation that has ballooned into the biggest crisis confronting NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s future and the organization’s 95-year history.
The Ravens released a statement late Friday evening stating:
“The ESPN.com ‘Outside the Lines’ article contains numerous errors, inaccuracies, false assumptions and, perhaps, misunderstandings. The Ravens will address all of these next week in Baltimore after our trip to Cleveland for Sunday’s game against the Browns.”
The NFL Players Association will appeal Rice’s indefinite suspension, claiming he’s the victim of double jeopardy. Initially, Rice was suspended for two games after the surveillance video showed him pulling his unconscious girlfriend’s body out of an elevator.
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