For battered NFL wives, a message from the cops and the league: Keep quiet Whenever Dewan Smith-Williams sees Janay Rice on television, she feels like she’s looking into a mirror. Smith-Williams, 44, remembers the denial, the secrecy, the sense of isolation, the shame. But most of all, she remembers the fear of ruining her husband’s career as a National Football League player — the feeling that coming forth, or seeking justice, would destroy her four children’s financial security. In rare cases when women did muster the courage to notify law enforcement, police officers appeared to tolerate players’ bad behavior. “When the cops would come, they just said we needed some time apart, and they would talk to [Wally] about football,” Smith-Williams recalls. “The police tell you, ‘You don’t want this in the news.’ I have things that happened in my life that there is no record of.” --via Washington Post
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 14:08:52 +0000