On Friday November 30th, Kansas City Chiefs Running Back Kareem Hunt was placed on the Commissioner's List and released from the team following disturbing hotel surveillance footage from February. Hunt, a second year player out of Toledo, burst onto the scene with an outstanding performance against the Patriots in Week 1 of the 2017 season and was on his way to another promising year until this news first arose. In the footage, Hunt, is seen wearing a black long sleeve shirt in a hallway with both men and women present. The first significant altercation occurs when Hunt pushes a woman. At this point the KC back is then restricted as the girl pushes back. When Hunt appears to be out of sight, he reemerges by bull-rushing a group of people knocking another girl to the ground. The girl is then seen on the ground holding her face as she recovers from the hard landing. One female tries to film the event taking place but eventually has her phones snatched out of her hands by an unknown man. As the video ends, Hunt walks over to the girl on the ground and kicks her. Kansas City would end up to admitting they were aware of the situation when it occurred but said that Hunt lied to them about the severity and that led to his termination from the team.
This latest incident of domestic violence comes less than a week after 49er’s Linebacker, Reuben Foster, was also placed on the Commissioner's List and released after allegedly beating up his girlfriend, Elissa Ennis. Foster however, managed to be claimed by the Washington Redskins a few days later. This move has been heavily scrutinized as D.C. failed to reach out to the police department regarding the ongoing investigation. Senior Vice President of Player Personnel and former Washington QB Doug Williams said in a statement “We’ve got people who are in high, high, high, high places that have done far worse, and if you look at it realistically, they’re still up there,” he said. “This is small potatoes [compared to] a lot of things out there." Williams has since retracted the his comments and apologized repeatedly calling his words ‘insensitive”.
Domestic violence and other forms of abuse have been plaguing the league since 2014 when Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was seen hitting his wife in a hotel elevator and then dragging her out unconscious. Since then, the National Football League has been met by endless complaints of not doing enough. Time and time again the league has ended up shooting themselves in the foot. It is over four years since Commissioner Roger Goodell’s speech in which he apologized for the mishandling of the Rice case and urged “they would do better”. Unfortunately, these words have not rung true as incidents including players like Ray McDonald, Greg Hardy, and Adrian Peterson all emerged after Rice and well before these most recent cases. Hardy, now a UFC fighter, originally received a 12 game suspension for brutally beating his now ex-girlfriend. However, after appeal Hardy would only serve 4 games of the original 12 handed down. Incidents like these have really made fans consider the thought process of league executives. Sports Illustrated Legal Analyst, Michael McCann pointed out something truly fascinating. He said “recall how NFL reacted to Deflategate: (1) hired a small army of attorneys who spent many billable hours interviewing 66 witnesses & writing a 139-page report; (2) hired Exponent for experiments & 82-page science report”. How knowledgeable is the NFL on Kareem Hunt? The answer; not very as he himself is yet to be interviewed.
Additionally, Hunt is now being investigated for a separate incident in addition to the one mentioned but little is known at this time.
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