Domestic Violence Awareness Month: Domestic Abuse Rears its Ugly Head Again in the NFL

Once again, the NFL is in the news for a domestic violence issue. This time, the player involved is New York Giants kicker Josh Brown. In 2015, Brown was arrested for a domestic violence charge. According to public records, Brown was arrested on a fourth degree domestic violence charge after he grabbed his wife’s wrist while she was attempting to call the police during a quarrel. After a 10-month investigation into the matter, the NFL had suspended Brown for one game after the incident. The charge was later dropped and the couple soon divorced.

However, new evidence has just been released by the police that shows that Brown had admitted to being “physically, emotionally and verbally” abuse to his wife and saw her as his slave. “I viewed myself as God basically and she was my slave,” Brown wrote in a journal entry released by the police. “I carried an overwhelming sense of entitlement because I put money higher than God and I used it as a power tool.”

As this evidence clearly shows, not all domestic abuse is physical. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 48.4 percent of women and 48.8 percent of men have experienced at least one psychologically aggressive behavior by an intimate partner. In addition, 4 in 10 women and men have experienced at least one form of coercive control by an intimate partner in their lifetime. And normally, psychological abuse is hand-in-hand with physical violence – 95 percent of men who physically abuse their intimidate partners also psychologically abuse them.

According to the Giants and the league, they were unaware of this material previously and the investigation has been reopened. Meanwhile, Brown has been put on suspension with pay.

This weekend, the New York Times posted a scathing article against the NFL and its lack of action on domestic violence: “If the N.F.L. has studied domestic violence cases at all since the Ray Rice debacle two years ago, it should know that putting the onus on an abused woman to make the case against her abuser — to the abuser’s employer, no less — is not exactly considered best practice.”

Currently, NFL’s “new” domestic violence policy calls for a six-game suspension without pay for a first-time offender and a more severe penalty if the act was against a pregnant woman or in the presence of a child. But is this really a tough enough penalty? We’ll soon see what happens next with the NFL domestic violence policies.

If you are a victim of domestic violence, there is help. Contact the Law Offices of Anthony Carbone now for a free consultation.

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