http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2015/11/08/...th-quarter-matthew-stafford-future-nfl-week-9
by Gary Gramling
I think,
if you don’t have the stomach for more Greg Hardy reaction, skip the next 800 or so words.
I was in the process of writing something very lengthy on the Greg Hardy photos, and then I saw Mike Rosenberg had
filed a piece that captured about 85% of my thoughts.
Kudos to Deadspin
for publishing the photos; Diana Moskovitz,
who consistently churns out excellent work, pulled together a great story. I would wholeheartedly recommend making her a regular read if you haven’t already.
However, little information in the Deadspin story is new. SI’s Jon Wertheim and our Emily Kaplan
wrote that piece 14 months ago. Pictures are indeed powerful, but anyone with even the most basic reading comprehension skills already knew exactly what were in those photos. Either that, or they didn’t care enough to find out:
First he flung Holder onto a bed, then he threw her into a bathtub. Then he tossed her onto a futon covered with a cache of firearms. An inventory of the guns later filed with the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office revealed 10 semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.
Next, Hardy ripped from Holder’s body a necklace that he had gifted her. He threw the jewelry into a toilet, and when Holder attempted to fish it out, Hardy slammed the lid on her arm. He then dragged her by the hair from room to room, she said, before putting his hands around her throat. “He looked me in my eyes and he told me he was going to kill me,” Holder later testified. “I was so scared, I wanted to die. When he loosened his grip slightly, I said, ‘Just do it. Kill me.’”
…according to the police report, “the witness [Christina Lawrence] stated several times, ‘Greg just beat the s--- out of her; he almost broke her arm. . .’ The victim [Holder] was crying and very upset. The victim had visual signs and swelling to both arms. Both elbows had scratches and welts. Minor cuts and scrapes and large areas of bruising and swelling were visible on her back.”
Emergency room photos reveal bruises on Holder’s foot, wrist, neck, chin, face, forearm, elbow and back.
That was what ran on Sept. 12, 2014. If you were calling for Greg Hardy to be banned forever for the first time on November 6, 2015, you’re more than a year too late. (And, more than likely, you’re just trying to win the rage race on Twitter.)
No one gets to treat this as new information. The only thing Jerry Jones and the Cowboys have done right in regards to Hardy has been to admit:
We didn’t see the pictures before, but we didn’t need to; we already knew everything. Because they did. And you should have too.
The
How could Goodell let him in the league? sentiment has been strong on this one. Goodell has made approximately 53,088 missteps in regards to the personal-conduct policy. This one is not one of them.
Goodell suspended Hardy for 15 games last season (17 if you include the playoffs). He tried to suspend him for another 10 this year, but it was overturned by an arbiter. There’s nothing more the league could do.
The Personal Conduct Policy is in place for public relations purposes. The league is unfit (as we’ve seen again and again and again) to dish out extra-judicial punishment. (Which isn’t
really a knock; the court system isn’t too great at it either and that’s the
only thing they do. To read a much smarter take than I can give you, check out
the column Steph Stradley wrote for us last year.)
If you have a problem with Hardy being in the NFL, take it up with:
1) The team and the owner who gave him a job. Hardy isn’t incarcerated. He will only be out of the league only if the Cowboys cut him (which they won’t) and 31 other teams decide to not sign him. And, again, that decision wouldn’t be based on ethics, it would be a reaction to public outcry (and, in this case, belated public outcry).
2) The quirky North Carolina court system that Hardy was so easily able to game. As far as the state is concerned, not only is Hardy not guilty despite being convicted by a county judge, the charges were expunged from his record.
That is a far bigger outrage than anything the NFL had done, will do or can do.
Moving forward, the questions we should be asking aren’t along the lines of
Who hates Greg Hardy the most? From what I’m hearing, we want to permanently ban from the NFL anyone who commits domestic violence. But…
What if there is no conviction? What if there are no photos or video? Knowing what’s at stake, would that discourage victims from coming forward? Does it matter if the player shows contrition? What if the player is (unlike Greg Hardy) otherwise considered a good person? Is there an alternate approach, as far as getting help for victims and offenders? Or, better yet, are there preventative measures the league can take to keep this from happening at all, or, at least much less frequently?
And much more importantly: In society at large, can we more effectively prosecute domestic violence? (Remember, the prosecution’s case fell apart when the victim, Nicole Holder, didn’t testify at Hardy’s appeal, presumably because of a civil settlement.) And what is the appropriate punishment? What preventative measures can ben taken?
If Greg Hardy were a certified public accountant making $75,000 annually as the sole breadwinner for a family of four, what would we want to happen? What happens if he has to serve a lengthy prison sentence and can never find work again? How does the financial well-being of his family factor into it? There has to be a strong deterrent against committing these crimes, but would his wife be destroying her own life by reporting it?
Running the rage race on Twitter is easy. Finding answers to these questions is not.