“PSA of the day … If you spit in a man’s face, you deserve to get knocked out. Man, woman or child. Period!”
This was a friend’s Facebook status on the day the news broke that Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice and his fiancee, Janay Palmer, had both been charged with simple assault after they were involved in a domestic dispute while visiting an Atlantic City casino over Valentine’s Day weekend. Rumor had it that Palmer had spit on Rice, and Rice had reacted. To what degree he reacted was anyone’s guess, at that time. Rice’s lawyer initially—and in hindsight, bafflingly—described the event as a “very minor physical altercation,” as if there were some way for a couple to lay hands on each other that wasn’t bad.
Good ole TMZ came through with footage of the aftermath to that dispute. “Very minor”? Hardly. Grainy video showed Rice dragging his unconscious fiancee from the elevator and discarding her facedown on a carpeted hallway. He seems not to want to be bothered, and even more so when he is approached by hotel security. As the woman comes to, he drags her around some more, seemingly annoyed. The first thing I wondered is, what happened to her?
