The Ravens, who had not previously disciplined Rice in any public way, announced Rice’s release on their Twitter account Monday afternoon. The league, which had been widely criticized for not penalizing Rice more strongly, has now indefinitely suspended him.
“Commissioner Roger Goodell has announced that based on the new video evidence that became available today, he has imposed an indefinite suspension on Ray Rice,” the N.F.L. said in a statement. Rice will have to apply to be reinstated.
The decisions came just hours after TMZ published the video on its website. It showed Rice punching Janay Palmer in an elevator, leaving her motionless on the floor. He then dragged her unconscious body from the elevator.
Previously published video of the incident was taken from a camera outside the elevator and showed only the aftereffects of the altercation. Rice was charged with felony assault in March, but after Janay Rice declined to testify against her husband, charges were reduced to court-supervised counseling.
Goodell, who has wide discretion to penalize players for violating the league’s personal conduct policy, was criticized for giving Rice only a two-game suspension. The N.F.L. received hundreds of phone calls in protest, and petitions with tens of thousands of signatures were collected.
After the episode, the Ravens said on Twitter: “Janay Rice says she deeply regrets the role that she played the night of the incident.”
Goodell said that in the future, any N.F.L. employee, including nonplayers, would be suspended for six games for a first offense of domestic violence and a minimum of a year for a second offense.
The video posted Monday, though, triggered questions about what the league knew, and when. A spokesman for the league said “no one in our office has seen it until today.”
But Peter King, an N.F.L. reporter for Sports Illustrated, wrote in July that the league had reviewed the elevator video, and the league has not disputed that report. An N.F.L. spokesman did not respond to inquiries Monday morning about whether any of the league’s investigators who do not work in the office had previously seen the video.
On Monday, advocates for victims of domestic violence called on Goodell to revisit his treatment of Rice in light of the new video. Within hours, the Ravens and the league acted.
“The Ravens have sent a strong message against domestic violence,” said Judy Harris Kluger, executive director for Sanctuary for Families. “It was impossible to ignore or explain away.”