Transition House Association coordinator reacts to Ray Rice video

The NFL has suspended Ray Rice indefinitely after a video surfaced on Monday showing him brutally beating his then-fiancée in a hotel elevator in February. In the wake of the video, Rice was also released from his contract with the Baltimore Ravens.

The NFL, its commissioner and the Ravens are facing criticism this week, with people asking why they didn’t take these actions sooner, given they knew about the incident in February.

Pamela Harrison is the provincial coordinator of the Transition House Association of Nova Scotia, a group that oversees women’s shelters like Byrony House in Halifax.

She says people are so accustomed to famous people behaving badly, they didn’t think much of it, until they saw the video.

“Until people were faced with the actual real footage of someone behaving in that manner, it was just another thing some star did,” she said.

“We see so much of this, in television, online, social media… It’s become normal, instead of something that we should be thinking of as bizarre.”

Janay Rice was engaged to Ray Rice at the time the video was taken. She’s now married to him, and took to Instagram to address the media, and defend her husband on Tuesday.

Harrison says this kind of reaction from victims is all too common. She wonders what kind of pressure Rice is putting on his wife to respond this way.

“There’s a lot resting on her response,” she said. “There’s his future, their future together, there’s financial implications. The pressure would be absolutely enormous on this young woman.”

She says her group hopes to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the first place.

“We’re trying to reach people who are early in the kind of power and control relationships,” she said.

“We want to say to them: how can you be healthier in your relationship?”

Harrison urges anyone who is in a position like this to call for help.

You can reach Byrony House at byronyhouse.ca or at 902-422-7650.