Report: NFL Didn't Interview Hunt or His Victim as Part of 'Investigation'
The sickening video of Kareem Hunt striking and kicking a woman that surfaced on Friday has made him Public Enemy No. 1.
But the NFL’s lack of response to the incident, which happened earlier this year, may make the league Public Enemy No. 2.
Neither the NFL nor the Chiefs saw the video until TMZ released it on Friday, according to news reports. And if the reports are true, the league didn’t do its due diligence on investigating the matter by interviewing Hunt or the victim.
“Kareem Hunt spoke to the Chiefs about the incident. The league spoke to the Chiefs about the incident, but after reviewing the police report and talking to the player, everybody decided to do nothing.”
–@AdamSchefter on the Kareem Hunt incident pic.twitter.com/9rSNdNzAJs
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) December 2, 2018
“The bottom line… the league in its investigation of Kareem Hunt never interviewed Kareem Hunt and never interviewed the woman involved,” ESPN analyst Adam Schefter said on Sunday’s “NFL Countdown.”
Schefter also said the NFL did try to subpoena both the hotel where the incident took place and the police but were “unsuccessful in their efforts.”
In a Twitter post, Albert Breer of Sport Illustrated’s MMQB also said that the Chiefs did interview Hunt and that the NFL just used the team’s information. What Hunt told the Chiefs was different from what happened in the video, which played a factor in the team’s decision to release the running back.
The NFL did attempt to interview the victim but either couldn’t reach her or she didn’t want to cooperate with the investigation, Breer wrote.
Multiple league executives expect former Chiefs’ RB Kareem Hunt to go unclaimed on waivers:https://t.co/1eOEDwCjxK
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) December 2, 2018
Despite the optics of not talking to the suspect or the victim, the league doesn’t feel it’s at any fault, ESPN reported.
Even more shocking than the NFL’s failure to interview Hunt or the woman is that the Cleveland Police Department apparently didn’t see the video of the attack.
Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network reported Sunday that the video was not part of two police reports filed by officers.
According to Rappaport, the Cleveland Police Department’s public information officer, Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia, said she didn’t think anyone with the department had seen the video. She also said that that since it was a misdemeanor case, detectives didn’t follow up as they would do with felony cases.
Comparisons to Hunt’s situation are being made to the Ray Rice situation in 2014.
Back then, former FBI director Robert Mueller conducted an independent report on the NFL’s investigation and said that the league “should have done more.”
“We concluded there was substantial information about the incident — even without the in-elevator video — indicating the need for a more thorough investigation,” Mueller wrote, according to ESPN. “The NFL should have done more with the information it had, and should have taken additional steps to obtain all available information about the February 15 incident.”
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