There might be a small issue with the NFL’s latest statement surrounding the Ray Rice surveillance video.
The NFL released a statement Tuesday morning again claiming that it had not seen the video of the Baltimore Ravens running back knocking out his then-fiancee in an elevator of an Atlantic City casino before TMZ released the video Monday.
“Security for Atlantic City casinos is handled by the New Jersey State Police.,” the league said in the statement. “Any videos related to an ongoing criminal investigation are held in the custody of the state police. As we said yesterday: We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator. That video was not made available to us.”
However, as Deadspin pointed out Tuesday, the New Jersey State Police took exception with that statement. The website found an interesting tidbit from an ESPN.com story about Janay Palmer, in which a New Jersey State police spokesman refuted the league’s statement.
“Investigations of incidents on the casino floor are handled by the NJSP, but this occurred in the elevator and was handled by the (Atlantic City Police Department),” the spokesman told ESPN.com. “We never had the video.”
So while the NFL might be telling the truth in saying it requested security footage from the state police, there was no chance they were ever going to get those tapes from the state police because they didn’t have them. The greater significance of that error, however, is still unknown.
Regardless, it’s not the best look for the league to be having the New Jersey State Police questioning facts in their statements.
