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]
Originally Posted by TwistedChief:
I was student council president in 8th grade, impeached for sexual harassment, and then called 'Clarence Thomas' for awhile. So I know what it's like to suffer from a heightened level of scrutiny.
Originally Posted by TwistedChief:
See... this is kinda what I have a problem with. In one breath, you say not to pass judgment or jump to conclusions and then in the next - truly without any real evidence - you state as a basis of fact that the GF is just as bad as Hill.
The fact is: he abused her. We know that. We don't know what precipitated it, but do we think there's anything that warrants choking out your pregnant girlfriend?
So, if you're saying with a straight face that we know she's as bad as he is, then you must be really making some horrible assumptions about what she did to Hill and to the kid in this situation.
How much do you know about her aside from that tape and that she teaches children for a living?
Mostly agree with this. The reality is people are judged in our society and painted with a brush all the time without a full set of facts. I'm sure many people have opinions on certain politics figures on both sides without knowing all or even most of the details. Do you reserve judgment until the matter finds a conclusion in a criminal court of law? No, because most situations don't end up there, and this may not either.
I get what you are saying and where you are coming from about Espinol. She was a victim of abuse from Tyreek at one point and time at least, but what’s on the tape doesn’t exactly scream model citizen either. If what is alluded to on the tape that Tyreek may have done, there should be outrage. He should be punished.
But, what I don’t get is why there doesn’t seem to be as much of an outcry by those loudest wanting Tyreek punished, etc. for the NFL to actually come up with a better solution for situations like this. The system is severely broken when a team trying to do the right thing is the one punished and taking all the criticism only to see another team scoop the player up with nothing said, no penalties, consequences, etc. I’d like to see something where at least any team attempting to pick up a player who was released, cut, or suspended there was at least draft pick forfeiture among other things. Until the system is fixed, we will likely continue to see a rinse and repeat of what has happened with Hunt and likely Hill.
I’m sure I will take criticism for it but I want the Chiefs to keep Hill suspended and force Goodell to be the first to act. I can only hope that maybe it will start things down a path to fixing the system.
I can understand giving guys a second chance even though it can be difficult to understand how they can mess up and do what they did in the first place, but a second offense should be an outright permanent lifetime ban if the NFL truly is serious about protecting the brand. I am in agreement that situations like what happened with Hill during college should count as a first offense and it not just be a situation where two offenses have to happen while said player is in the NFL. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Pasta Giant Meatball:
NOBODY WILL CARE IN A FEW MONTHS...and he will be on another "honorless team" praised for "turning things around" You realize that right??
You're delusional if you think nobody will remember. Or that this will go away like it did for hunt or hell even frank Clark. The image in people's brains of a man hitting a pregnant woman are not much different from the image of Ray Rice punching the daylights out of a woman in an elevator. Video or no video. It's going to take a whole career to redeem himself if he even gets that shot. [Reply]
Originally Posted by TwistedChief:
I was student council president in 8th grade, impeached for sexual harassment, and then called 'Clarence Thomas' for awhile. So I know what it's like to suffer from a heightened level of scrutiny.
But you realize that you when you abuse your pregnant girlfriend, you've invited such scrutiny on yourself and deserve it.
Originally Posted by Mulliganman:
The system is severely broken when a team trying to do the right thing is the one punished and taking all the criticism only to see another team scoop the player up with nothing said, no penalties, consequences, etc.
Originally Posted by Pasta Giant Meatball:
NOBODY WILL CARE IN A FEW MONTHS...and he will be on another "honorless team" praised for "turning things around" You realize that right??
A few of us do, let's just hope Clark understands it too. And all Clark has to say is, "We're awaiting word from the NFL front office", then the ball's in their court. Roger can get Boo'd more! [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mulliganman:
But, what I don’t get is why there doesn’t seem to be as much of an outcry by those loudest wanting Tyreek punished, etc. for the NFL to actually come up with a better solution for situations like this. The system is severely broken when a team trying to do the right thing is the one punished and taking all the criticism only to see another team scoop the player up with nothing said, no penalties, consequences, etc. I’d like to see something where at least any team attempting to pick up a player who was released, cut, or suspended there was at least draft pick forfeiture among other things. Until the system is fixed, we will likely continue to see a rinse and repeat of what has happened with Hunt and likely Hill.
I’m sure I will take criticism for it but I want the Chiefs to keep Hill suspended and force Goodell to be the first to act. I can only hope that maybe it will start things down a path to fixing the system.
I can understand giving guys a second chance even though it can be difficult to understand how they can mess up and do what they did in the first place, but a second offense should be an outright permanent lifetime ban if the NFL truly is serious about protecting the brand. I am in agreement that situations like what happened with Hill during college should count as a first offense and it not just be a situation where two offenses have to happen while said player is in the NFL.
I could not agree with you more. The system is broken. But all solutions will involve discretion of either a single individual (Gooddell) or a panel because of the wide variety of situations: child abuse vs spousal abuse vs beating up a smaller guy at a club vs getting beaten up by a larger guy at a club vs video vs no video vs audio vs punching a man vs punching a woman vs 1st degree assault vs 2nd degree assault vs charges not pressed vs sexual assault vs manslaughter.
How do you institute a rules-based system with an unlimited amount of potential circumstances?
Anyway, it's not easy, but we all left the Hunt situation with an awful taste in our mouths and we're all petrified it happens again with Hill. I think he shouldn't play another down in the NFL both because of what he's done (2 MAJOR strikes if the evidence stacks up) and because I just really don't want to see him on another team catching TDs. [Reply]
Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501:
You're delusional if you think nobody will remember. Or that this will go away like it did for hunt or hell even frank Clark. The image in people's brains of a man hitting a pregnant woman are not much different from the image of Ray Rice punching the daylights out of a woman in an elevator. Video or no video. It's going to take a whole career to redeem himself if he even gets that shot.
What's wrong with letting the NFL take the lead? [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mulliganman:
I get what you are saying and where you are coming from about Espinol. She was a victim of abuse from Tyreek at one point and time at least, but what’s on the tape doesn’t exactly scream model citizen either. If what is alluded to on the tape that Tyreek may have done, there should be outrage. He should be punished.
But, what I don’t get is why there doesn’t seem to be as much of an outcry by those loudest wanting Tyreek punished, etc. for the NFL to actually come up with a better solution for situations like this. The system is severely broken when a team trying to do the right thing is the one punished and taking all the criticism only to see another team scoop the player up with nothing said, no penalties, consequences, etc. I’d like to see something where at least any team attempting to pick up a player who was released, cut, or suspended there was at least draft pick forfeiture among other things. Until the system is fixed, we will likely continue to see a rinse and repeat of what has happened with Hunt and likely Hill.
I’m sure I will take criticism for it but I want the Chiefs to keep Hill suspended and force Goodell to be the first to act. I can only hope that maybe it will start things down a path to fixing the system.
I can understand giving guys a second chance even though it can be difficult to understand how they can mess up and do what they did in the first place, but a second offense should be an outright permanent lifetime ban if the NFL truly is serious about protecting the brand. I am in agreement that situations like what happened with Hill during college should count as a first offense and it not just be a situation where two offenses have to happen while said player is in the NFL.
