NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, admitting he wasn’t doing enough to crack down on violence against women, made a strong move to change that. In a letter sent to owners, Goodell announced future violations of the personal-conduct policy related to domestic violence or sexual assault by NFL personnel will result in a six game suspension for a first offense and a ban of at least a year for a second.
Goodell drew harsh criticism when he announced last month that Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice would be suspended for two games for striking Janay Palmer, now his wife, at a New Jersey casino and being caught on camera dragging her unconscious body out of an elevator. Rice has been accepted into a pretrial intervention program.
“We allowed our standards to fall below where they should be and lost an important opportunity to emphasize our strong stance on a critical issue and the effective programs we have in place,” Goodell wrote in a letter which was obtained Thursday.
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Neither the NHL nor Major League Baseball has specific penalties for domestic abuse or sexual assault. The NBA has a minimum 10 game suspension for anyone convicted of what it terms a violent felony and has punished players charged or convicted of lesser offenses when they’ve involved domestic abuse.
“The trickledown effect will be huge,” said Katherine Redmond, founder of the Denver-based National Coalition Against Violent Athletes.