New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has slammed the National Football League's handling of the Ray Rice battery scandal while revealing that Congress is likely to investigate the issue.
Rice, a running back, was released by the Baltimore Ravens and suspended indefinitely by the NFL after a video surfaced last week showing him in an elevator knocking out his then fiancee Janay Palmer, now his wife.
"I think the way the NFL handled this was awful," Gillibrand, a Democrat, said in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday. "It was outrageous."
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She continued: "They had all the facts they needed. They had a player who admitted to beating his wife. They had video of him dragging her out an elevator. There was nothing left to determine. That player should've been fired immediately."
Gillibrand was one of
16 female senators who wrote to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell last week, urging a "zero-tolerance policy" for players who commit acts of domestic violence against women.
Goodell has claimed the league had never seen the video of Rice punching his wife, although it had seen another tape of him dragging her unconscious body out of the elevator. But a law enforcement official has alleged that he sent the video of the beating to the NFL five months ago, according to
CBS News.
"Initially I wanted [Goodell] to lead the reform to initiate a zero-tolerance policy," Gillibrand said. "If he lied to the American people, then he has to step down because he won't have the force of authority to change how they address these issues."
She added, "If the NFL doesn't police themselves, then we will be looking more into it. I wouldn't be surprised if we had hearings."
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