The instantly infamous audio clip of Tyreek Hill and Crystal Espinal that KCTV-5 aired on Thursday night stood for many things at once.
It was a lens onto a chilling side of Hill, whose response to being told their 3-year-old son is terrified of him was, “You need to be terrified of me, too, bitch.” It was an appalling glimpse at what several sources have told The Star is a toxic relationship.
And her disturbing reference to covering for him with authorities (“I rode for you,” as she put it) was a window into the sorts of obstacles to which Johnson County district attorney Steve Howe seemed to be alluding on Thursday. That’s when he said a crime had been committed when it came their son, who The Star reported had suffered a broken arm among other injuries, but suggested he couldn’t bring charges because the couple had conspired to stonewall a month-long investigation.
Perhaps most of all, the excerpt from a recording Espinal reportedly made while the couple was walking in the Dubai International Airport also was a moment of tangible clarity and, in fact, a favor to the Chiefs.
Unless they are morally bankrupt, it’s easy now.
If they care about what they stand for, if they care about the community, if they care about victims of abuse and their families who already had to be conflicted watching this previously convicted man cavort on the field, Hill can’t be part of this team.
It’s that simple: If they care about honor and decency, Hill can’t be part of this team.
Even after Howe’s extraordinary news conference, there was scant room for equivocation or rationalization about Hill unless they were bent on denial or creating smokescreens around the real issue.
Which they could well have been, given that Hill is their second-most dynamic offensive player behind Patrick Mahomes and arguably fundamental to their ambitions of playing in the Super Bowl for the first time in half a century.
Sure, the Chiefs are in business to compete, not be a pillar of virtue. Those worlds can collide, and it can be complicated. Or as reader Dan Curry eloquently put it in an email on Thursday: “We want them to be a beacon of honor, but they’re also a business where that beacon shines on winning from the thousands of fans who follow them.”
But the spotlight now is on what looms as a trend for this franchise, which cut running back Kareem Hunt last fall only after video surfaced of him knocking over and shoving a woman months before and emphasized it was for lying.
Earlier this week, the Chiefs traded for Seattle defensive end Frank Clark, who was involved in a domestic violence incident in 2014 that led to him being dismissed from the Michigan football team.
Sure, it’s hard to have a one-size-fits-all policy. And we can’t be so cynical that we don’t believe in second chances, can we?
Just the same, this is a franchise that should feel more duty-bound than most to be sensitive to domestic violence in the wake of the 2012 murder of Kasandra Perkins by linebacker Jovan Belcher, who then killed himself in the parking lot outside the Chiefs’ training facility.
When the Chiefs drafted Hill in 2016, a few months after he pleaded guilty to domestic assault and battery by strangulation of the then-pregnant Espinal, I touched base with Perkins’ mother, Becky Gonzalez.
“I heard the story: It’s disheartening to see another case of money over morals,” Becky Gonzalez, the grandmother to orphaned baby Zoey, said via text message. “They (the NFL) do whatever damage control is necessary at the time to appease (the) public but never take a stance.
“I hope they don’t end up regretting their decision.”
For a while, their decision looked good. While Hill was emerging as a human blur and one of the most exciting players anyone has ever seen, he also by all accounts was conducting himself with exemplary behavior.
When his three-year deferred sentence ended last August and Hill had completed all of his court-mandated requirements, Hill’s conviction in Payne County, Okla., was expunged. And it was heartening to hear what county assistant DA for domestic violence Debra Vincent said.
“Who’s to say that this wasn’t life-changing in how he looked at that part of his life?” she said in a phone interview at the time.
But Vincent also reminded me of the truth that was always lurking: She warned that the work he’d done to date was no guarantee of future behavior. Because his progress could only be measured over a lifetime, not a few years — just as concerned local domestic abuse experts warned when the Chiefs drafted Hill and trumpeted their vetting and urged us all to trust them.
And that’s the other favor this sad situation has done for the Chiefs. It stands as a statement that they need to change their attitude about this, not to mention their system.
When they said “trust us” and implied they knew better than the experts and said they had thoroughly vetted him and that they have their own in-house ways of working with these situations, they didn’t know what they didn’t know.
Now they need to own up to that and revisit how they do this part of the business, perhaps with a dose of transparency involved, lest they continue to go down this path and have reason to regret it again.
Vahe Gregorian has been a sports columnist for The Kansas City Star since 2013 after 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered a wide spectrum of sports, including 10 Olympics. Vahe was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and earned his master’s degree at Mizzou. [Reply]
My god there are some seriously yike takes in here... my god half of you care more about football than anything else including a childs safety.. my fucking god [Reply]
Originally Posted by ChiefBlueCFC:
My god there are some seriously yike takes in here... my god half of you care more about football than anything else including a childs safety.. my fucking god
Does it hurt holding up your holy halo? Is it heavy? [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mile High Mania:
The interesting thing ... Ray Rice has never seen the field again, but Adrian Peterson got a second chance.
Yes Adrian Peterson got a 2nd chance for DISCIPLINING his child by spanking, something I'm sure over 50% of the people on this forum have been exposed to. There's a HUGE difference between that and breaking a kids arm and pounding him in the chest when he cries. Adrian Peterson also didnt have any previous histories or convictions for domestic violence, Hill did. Hill will now be prosecuted for this crime and likely convicted. Given his previous conviction and the public reaction he's looking at a prison term.
The NFL has had chances to use the platform they have to make the most of guys with hx of violence and they have failed.
The list of bad people that play and have played in the NFL goes on in on. You never hear about the steps they are taking to try and help prevent hx of violence. It's just a suspension and fine.
Last night during the draft, Simmons gets picked and they play video of him punching a woman multiple times. They go on to say "We aren't trying to tell you what to think of the situation" but yet that clearly was not the case, because they went on to point out that it involved his sister and how it was this long feud between two women and he was just trying to help, and how he hasn't got in any trouble since.
I think there was 3-4 guys last night in rd 1 that they mentioned off the field issues about.
The reality is that if the NFL put forth the effort, they could make a huge difference. They have all the resources in the world to help these guys and people around them.
Think about this, what would happen if these guys didn't go to the NFL? They would have little to no resources, no one trying to help them or push them to get therapy, etc. The NFL could be great for guys to get a second chance and hopefully help reform them into good citizens. Otherwise they are still going to be part of society and be repeat offenders.
Obviously everyone is welcome to their own opinions. I would hope people are for second chances (in most circumstances) but when you are the NFL and have the attention of so many in world, if you are going to employee guys with a violent past then have a system in place to help them, if they don't follow that system, even just once, then they are gone. It won't work for everyone but it should help some and that is better than he alternative of what typically happens in society for all DV abusers, not just athletes.
As for Hill, He has to be, and will be gone from the Chiefs. Even though he is denies most things on the tape, he didn't deny hitting his son in the chest.
It's also disturbing to hear Crystal say "Yea I whoop him, I whoop him"
I hope all the kids are removed and stay removed from both Tyreek and Crystal. [Reply]
Get the fuck out of here with this shit. If Hill is allowed to play in the league then the Chiefs and any other team can sign him. At the end of the day, this is a business. If the league doesn't want Hill to play then fine. But for the Chiefs or a particular team to claim moral ground while other teams sign said bad person, that's just a dumb business decision.
Good business decisions and good ethical decisions rarely go hand-hand. But that's life. [Reply]
Originally Posted by TRR:
Funny you bring AP up. To me this situation is no different. AP came out and said “yeah I did it.” He whipped his very young son a tree branch, cutting him on and in between his thighs. The photos are horrific...and he showed close to zero remorse. He simply said he was disciplined the same way. He was re-signed and is still in the league. Some even wrote articles about how they felt AP was unfairly treated.
Let this Hill thing play out. Let the NFL rule. Adjust accordingly.
Has anybody ever written an article about how tyreek was unfairly cast as a bad guy? Or was it excuse after excuse about how he was a changed man who made a mistake? APs actions were bad, but there were plenty of debates about whether he genuinely did not know better. This is not about child abuse for tyreek. This is about an anger management issue the Chiefs swore up and down he had fixed, but this raises very serious doubts that it does. This is no longer just a simple mistake, it paints him as a serial abuser with serious concerns that something is going to happen again. No pr team can ever put a positive bullshit spin on how he's trying to reform himself. And teams know he's one tiny mistake away from a practical permaban, if he isn't there already when all this shakes out.
This is not his second chance. This is him, from the looks of it, blowing an enormously important second chance. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mecca:
Probably because if they got rid of all the guys who are just violent people their league wouldn't be nearly as good.
I'm not talking about getting rid of anyone. I'm talking about them being used as million dollar chad to catch even more millions from fans and communities and then cutting bait when they don't meet some hypocritical ethical standard (i.e., making the NFL look bad).
The NFL and teams need to recognize where these guys come from and do something to help them. Accepting them for who they are and where they come from is one thing, but then leaving them there, watching their lives spiral out of control and then act dismayed and disappointed when the inevitable occurs, and subsequently booting them to the curb is just outright hard hearted and cruel - everything the NFL claims it isn't. [Reply]
And BTW, for some on here and the douche bags over at 810, no one is forcing you to be a fan of the Chiefs and\or the NFL. If the Chiefs decide to keep Hill because the NFL decides not to perma-ban him then you are free to not watch.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions. But there are people running to extremes and looking like either self-righteous idiots or non-caring schmucks.
Perspective, context and objectivity are sorely needed right now. Not emotional, knee-jerking.
The clowns at 810 this morning decided they would tell every story they know about someone they know quitting a job as a CPA to become a social worker. Or how they support all these charities and such. This sudden caring about domestic violence and child abuse is coming off as a bit over dramatic.
It's one thing to spend some time discussing the issue and realizing that bad things happen and we need to be cognizant of that even when it comes to athletes.
It's another thing though to climb on your high horse, pretend you never said anything mean or hurtful to your significant other and start telling stories about your cousin's, brother's, friend's, wife who became a social worker.
Because the sad fact of the matter is, Steven St. John and Bob Fescoe and KK and the other talk show douche bags will be moved on and this will be all forgotten in a few days.
This is why people need to maintain perspective. Not jump to conclusions and not try to connect dots to the point that they start twisting facts to fit their narrative. Between the courts, the NFL and the Chiefs, this will play out. And once it does people are free to have their opinions on the matter. And if that means they don't like the Chiefs because they kept or cut Hill then there is the door. [Reply]
I respectfully think there's a spectrum here and you guys are trying to paint things very black and white.
I had no problem with drafting Hill because I thought - although what he did in college was pretty horrific - he was young and deserved a second chance.
I liked trading for Clark even though I knew his history because it seemed like an isolated incident and not a pattern of behavior.
I had no problem signing Okafor and was proud that it took 3 officers to bring him down when he was arrested.
I wasn't okay releasing Hunt because of the video but fully understood how a breach of trust (i.e., lying to your employer) was grounds for dismissal.
All different situations with varying levels of severity.
But now, I believe Tyreek Hill violated his second chance, and not in a I-punched-a-guy-at-a-nightclub sort of way. I think he abused his kid and then conspired with his girlfriend to cover it up to get a 100mm contract (I know some of you dispute that and that's fine, but that's beside the point I'm trying to make). This in conjunction with his earlier arrest for domestic violence tips the scales for me - I don't think he should ever play again in the NFL and think Gooddell should make an example out of him (though I have no clue how it'll ultimately play out).
I want the Chiefs to win a Super Bowl as much as you guys do. And I don't care about having a lot of choir boys on the team. But Tyreek Hill - as far as I can tell (again my opinion) - is much worse than the other examples and pretty close to the bottom of the barrel that only Belcher has truly managed to reach. [Reply]
