Blumenthal calls on NFL, Says Ignorance is not an Excuse

By Feroze Dhanoa

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the move to suspend Ray Rice should have been done a long time ago, WFSB reported.

Blumenthal told the news channel that he supported the NFL’s decision to terminate Rice but there should have been no need for a video that showed what everyone already knew happened.

The Senator, along with two other U.S. senators, sent a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the Baltimore Ravens in July asking them to develop better procedures for handling domestic violence and to impose a stiffer penalty on Rice.

In a statement issued Monday, the Senator said the new video showed how weak the initial punishment against Rice was. He said the new video constitutes new and powerful evidence that requires the commissioner to reconsider and reach a stronger punishment.

The AP reported that a law enforcement official sent the video to an NFL executive three months ago, although league officials claimed they hadn’t seen the video till this week.

Blumenthal said in a statement that reports that the NFL had the Ray Rice video pointed to Roger Goodell’s insurmountable credibility gap.

“The NFL has an obligation to do better, and a position of public trust – benefiting from broad antitrust exemptions granted by Congress, and hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer benefits,” Blumenthal said in the statement. “If these allegations are true, Roger Goodell is part of the problem, and he is incapable of achieving a real solution.”

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