Originally Posted by :
Now that the full 11-minute recording of Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill and his now former fiancee, Crystal Espinal, talking about violence in their relationship has been aired, many fans are saying wow, this changes everything.
It does? That Hill, who didn’t know Espinal was taping him, denies ever hitting her or their son in what he thought was a private conversation is neither surprising nor exculpatory.
Abusers typically tell not only the police but friends, family, therapists, priests and even themselves they’ve never done anything wrong.
And if anything, the fact that Hill now says he didn’t hit punch or choke Espinal in 2014 makes him look worse rather than better. He pleaded guilty to those charges, publicly apologized, went through extensive therapy and declared himself reformed after probation. If he’s now back to saying that none of this ever happened, that’s not just a lie but a worrying one.
“I didn’t touch you in 2014,” he says on the tape. “And put that on everything I love, bro. That’s the real truth.”
That Espinal isn’t screaming at him that no, it’s not the truth, real or otherwise, is taken by some supporters as proof that he is innocent.
But why a woman who has been injured by him before and he’s threatening to hurt again might not do that should be obvious.
When she instead repeatedly asks him where her bruises came from if he never hit her, he doesn’t answer because there isn’t an answer that he likes well enough to repeat.
On Thursday, Espinal filed a petition in Johnson County seeking a paternity test for their newborn twins. She has full custody of them — they live with her — and she is asking for child support and only supervised visits for Hill. Her lawyer in the matter is legal counsel for SAFEHOME, a Johnson County group that supports survivors of domestic violence.
The NFL, meanwhile, seems ready to let Hill off with a brief suspension because the legal case against him isn’t going anywhere, but these things are still true:
Hill’s son was removed from his home after a child abuse investigation was launched. The Johnson County district attorney said the 3-year-old child had been hurt, but he didn’t have enough proof to prosecute.
On the tape, we heard Hill threaten the mother of his children with physical violence: “You need to be scared of me, too, dumb bitch.” He berates and belittles, calls her “bro” and “bitch” and of course, claims she ruined his life.
Denial of all wrongdoing is so standard in abuse cases that just a look at Thursday’s Star provides other examples, including that of Scott Hacker, the now former Parkville police officer charged with domestic violence after allegedly shooting his gun inside his home, throwing the woman who called 911 onto the couch, grabbing her by the throat and blaming her for “ending his career” by calling for help. Both before and after the cops arrived, he said he hadn’t shot the gun or touched her. But oops: A security camera in the living room apparently recorded the assault.
What Espinal was trying to get was the audio equivalent of that video.
If the NFL lets Hill back on the field this season, it will send the message that making threats and showing you’ve learned nothing from probation is no real problem, as long as you can run fast enough. The help he needs is not more denial, but just the opposite.
To the rest of you who are intent on seeing Hill as the victim, KCTV as a villain for not immediately releasing the full tape, and Espinal as a “manipulator” for wanting evidence to back her up in court, we could suggest some reading on the well-researched subject of abuse. But why, when you seem to prefer not to know?
Originally Posted by Hoover:
Newspaper editorial boards are jokes. They think they have some sort of authority on telling the public how they should think on any particular issue.
What a crock.
Traditional news media is a joke, and the Hill situation has exposed that in the KC area.
They're not telling you what to think, anymore than your opinion on CP is telling us what to think. It's the newspaper's opinion. Readers should be welcomed to disagree with them (unfortunately not all newspapers are that welcoming). It's meant to stimulate debate.
FTR, I think the Star editorial is terrible. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mecca:
They want their pound of flesh, Pryor really does because I'm sure she thinks the Chiefs organization needs to be cleaned up. I bet if she was off the record she would likely tell you how fucked up it is we got rid of good guys like Houston and Berry to bring in a shithead like Clark..
I hope he is smart here because she is going to be sniffing around him constantly.
That's because she's trying to determine what he packed for lunch [Reply]
Originally Posted by Eleazar:
I don't understand how you can publicly flog someone for stuff they said when they were 13.
But, we encourage this media culture by rewarding them with clicks, mentions, replies, threads on CP, etc.
Even if someone deleted their social media accounts there are still sites out there that catalog it all. For an athlete or a public figure, the only winning move with social media is not to play.
I'm slowly coming to the realization that that's true for everyone, not just celebrities. Social media seems like a great place to express yourself, but pretty much anything a person says is going to make some people like them more, and others will like them less. And people tend to better remember the things that cause them to like you less.
Add in the fact that there's a media industry these days that's gunning for celebrities, and no celebrity should have a social media presence any more. Just stay quiet, do your job, and live your life behind the walls of your estate. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Lprechaun:
When was the last time she did a hit piece on a white player? Did she have a bad feeling about Hardman as well?
I'm just amazed that she attacked a 13 year old kid in the newspaper. That's far past the line of what's acceptable. I hadn't heard about that. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Rain Man:
I'm just amazed that she attacked a 13 year old kid in the newspaper. That's far past the line of what's acceptable. I hadn't heard about that.
Just seeing if there is a pattern.... you know like poorly veiled racism.
Maybe there just isnt any homer style sports journalism left. It's fine to report on current bad things, but going out of your way to make a problem is just bad.
And lost all respect for Terez coming to her defense. [Reply]
Some of you don't know what it's like when the female in the relationship is also an abuser. No matter what you say as a man, she will get the benefit of the doubt. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Lprechaun:
Just seeing if there is a pattern.... you know like poorly veiled racism.
Maybe there just isnt any homer style sports journalism left. It's fine to report on current bad things, but going out of your way to make a problem is just bad.
And lost all respect for Terez coming to her defense.
My hunch is that it's driven by sexism, not racism. But there's certainly a racist undertone. [Reply]
What’s scary is that we’ve essentially ceded control of all of our institutions to these people. These hall monitor / moral crusaders control our media institutions, educational institutions, government agencies, social media firms, HR departments.
I must state that I support the whole 'metoo' thing to a reasonable (and gender-neutral) extent. There are lots of people out there who abuse power, and the sad truth is that being evil gives people a competitive advantage in reaching powerful positions. So while a lot of powerful people are likely good, I think that evil people are disproportionately represented among those in power, and this is one way to take them down. Bravo for that.
That producer guy in Hollywood is a great example of good results coming out of this mindset. There are other examples of terrible people getting taken down by this movement, and I applaud them. I personally had an experience about ten years ago of witnessing people in power who were absolute monsters, and because they were in positions of power they got away with it. (Financial theft of government funds in one of our suburban counties. Still happening because they control the budget of their local DA and they control the contract of their auditor.) I tried everything to get them exposed and arrested, but they controlled all of the investigative sources.
One challenge, though, is that the movement has become a mushroom hunt now, where amateurs can go out and point fingers. Reporting on a person's social media comments when they were 13 years old is beyond ridiculous. If someone wants to be a real reporter, find the big stories, because the big stories are out there.
The other challenge is that too many people have become extremist, seeing villainy in everyone who doesn't look like them, and are unable to look at the facts. The Tyreek situation is exactly that. Some people drew conclusions based on what they want to see, and they are unwilling to objectively hear new evidence. Combine that with the financial incentives to keep the story going, and you have a problem in the local KC media. [Reply]
The other challenge is that too many people have become extremist, seeing villainy in everyone who doesn't look like them, and are unable to look at the facts. The Tyreek situation is exactly that. Some people drew conclusions based on what they want to see, and they are unwilling to objectively hear new evidence. Combine that with the financial incentives to keep the story going, and you have a problem in the local KC media.
Absolutely right - this is easily the biggest issue here.
I've refused to cheer for Hill since we've drafted him. I've acknowledged his progress as a player, but I've never been willing to fully support a guy who plead guilty to abusing his pregnant girlfriend.
But man, if someone can't listen to that tape and hear the exasperation and outright confusion in his voice when all that was going on, I just don't know what they were listening to. I absolutely entered this fully prepared to believe that Hill is a violent sociopath that abused his child just as he abused his girlfriend but I've also been willing to listen/review some of this stuff for what it is. In the process I've come to believe that there's a possibility that ALL of this is bullshit. And it's probably no worse than a 50/50 shot at that.
The major, major problem here with Pryor, TV5 and the rest of these hatchet-men is that they're completely unwilling to do the same. They refuse to consider the possibility that they were wrong so everything they read/hear is just more evidence that they were right in their eyes.
Originally Posted by Rain Man:
I'm slowly coming to the realization that that's true for everyone, not just celebrities. Social media seems like a great place to express yourself, but pretty much anything a person says is going to make some people like them more, and others will like them less. And people tend to better remember the things that cause them to like you less.
Add in the fact that there's a media industry these days that's gunning for celebrities, and no celebrity should have a social media presence any more. Just stay quiet, do your job, and live your life behind the walls of your estate.
Yeah, it reminds you of how Belichick and the Pats started handling the media years ago, only doing the bare minimum. The media is not their friend. The media usually benefit more from saying and reporting on things that hurt the team or sow division in the locker room. The media can't help your team win a Super Bowl, but they can definitely hurt you. Since their interests are not aligned with yours, avoid them.
Of course if you go and create real legal trouble for yourself, you've only yourself to blame. But why run your social media personally when you are a public figure? Let your agent and their PR people post banal updates about your charity work and such, and leave it at that. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Eleazar:
Yeah, it reminds you of how Belichick and the Pats started handling the media years ago, only doing the bare minimum. The media is not their friend. The media usually benefit more from saying and reporting on things that hurt the team or sow division in the locker room. The media can't help your team win a Super Bowl, but they can definitely hurt you. Since their interests are not aligned with yours, avoid them.
Of course if you go and create real legal trouble for yourself, you've only yourself to blame. But why run your social media personally when you are a public figure? Let your agent and their PR people post banal updates about your charity work and such, and leave it at that.
Oh that's not hard to answer at all.
Look at how accessible Patrick Mahomes is on his social media and how much people love him for it. If you can keep from stepping on your dick - yeah, you should absolutely run your own account. It's a Q-Rating goldmine. [Reply]