Contemporary reporting on the NFL's response to Carruth.

The NFL has had to police the recent outbreak of unnecessary roughness and late hits that threaten to maim players. But many of the league's players are now doing their maiming off the field. Jeff Benedict and Don Yeager's new book, Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL, lists the league's known felons. Here's just a smattering: Cornelius Bennett (rape and sexual assault); Cortez Kennedy (domestic violence); Andre Rison (aggravated assault); Deion Sanders (aggravated assault and battery). Since 1997, law-enforcement officials have arrested more than 100 of the NFL's 2,000 or so players—average salary $600,000—for violent crimes.

Like O. J. Simpson before them, two of the league's current star players are now up on murder charges: Rae Carruth, wide receiver for the Carolina Panthers, for allegedly masterminding the fatal drive-by shooting of his pregnant girlfriend; and Ray Lewis, all-pro linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, for allegedly stabbing to death two men outside an Atlanta bar with the help of two accomplices. The league's response? "We have fewer incidents involving NFL players than society at large has," NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue tepidly observes in response to the two crimes. The league needs to answer why they hire individuals prone to commit violent felonies in the first place.

Right. I'm also not a huge fan of hunting, but at least some of the time, it provides *food* for people. As opposed to dog-fighting, which provides cheap and cruel thrills for assholes.

This is me.

I'm wondering what stake the NAACP has in the NFL that somebody thought it was a good idea to have White comment on this case.

America's Got Talent is a dogfighting show?

America's Got Talent is a dogfighting show?

It sometimes feels like it.

And there's just this TINY difference that hunting doesn't involve torturing the animals.

(FWIW, in some ways I'm more comfortable with eating the venison from my brother and nephew's deer hunting than with ordinary beef, pork, and chicken from the grocery store, because I figure the deer lived a natural and happy life until David or Eric shot it, unlike the factory-farmed animal.)

"We have fewer incidents involving NFL players than society at large has,"

Oh. Well. That makes it okay.

(FWIW, in some ways I'm more comfortable with eating the venison from my brother and nephew's deer hunting than with ordinary beef, pork, and chicken from the grocery store, because I figure the deer lived a natural and happy life until David or Eric shot it, unlike the factory-farmed animal.)

Even as a mostly vegetarian for the last 30 years, that makes sense to me.

And there's just this TINY difference that hunting doesn't involve torturing the animals.

for fun even

While I like neither, one is actually, ya know, fucking LEGAL.

It's more than that, though. They're not remotely the same thing, and dog fighting has consequences that go beyond the extreme cruelty of it. I got into a discussion on this on a blog recently where people were talking about how it's no worse than fox hunting only for poor people, or some such idiocy.

I think this is right on: From Michigan State College of Law - [link]

From an animal welfare standpoint, dog-fighting is one of the most serious forms of animal abuse, not only for the heinous acts of violence that the dogs endure during and after the fights, but because they literally suffer their entire lives. Dogs that are born, bought or stolen for fighting are often neglected and abused from the start. Most spend their entire lives alone on chains or in cages and only know the attention of a human when they are being trained to fight and they only know the company of other animals in the context of being trained to kill them. Most dogs spend their entire lives without adequate food, water, or shelter. They are not perceived as sentient beings capable of suffering, rather they are commodities that exist for the sole purpose of making the owner money and prestige. The prevailing mind set among dog fighters is that the more the dog suffers, the tougher he will become, and the better fighter he will be. The fighting dogs are not the only victims of heinous cruelty. Many of the training methods involve torturing and killing of other innocent animals. Often pets are stolen or otherwise obtained to be used as live bait in training exercises to improve the dogs’ endurance, strength, or fighting ability. If the bait animals are still alive after the training sessions, they are usually given to the dogs as a reward, and the dogs finish killing them.

The collective American conscience has long been repulsed by the undeniable brutality within the culture of dogfighting, but the law enforcement community has been regrettably lax in appreciating the full scope and gravity of the problem. Historically, the crime of dog-fighting was considered an isolated animal welfare issue, and as such was ignored, denied, or disregarded by law enforcement. Within the last decade, however a growing body of legal and empirical evidence has emerged exposing the clandestine culture of dog-fighting and its nexus with other crimes and community violence. Dog fighters are violent criminals that engage in a whole host of peripheral criminal activities. Many are heavily involved in organized crime, racketeering, drug distribution, or gangs, and they arrange and attend the fights as a forum for gambling and drug trafficking. Many communities have been morally, socially and culturally scarred by the menacing pestilence of dogfighting for generations. From a very early age, children in those communities are routinely exposed to the unfathomable violence that is inherent within the blood sport. Even seasoned law enforcement agents are consistently appalled by the atrocities that they encounter before, during, and after dog fights, yet the children that grow up exposed to it are conditioned to believe that the violence is normal. Those children are systematically desensitized to the suffering, and ultimately become criminalized.

(I'd like to see that last phrase qualified or better explained, but otherwise, yeah.)

(FWIW, in some ways I'm more comfortable with eating the venison from my brother and nephew's deer hunting than with ordinary beef, pork, and chicken from the grocery store, because I figure the deer lived a natural and happy life until David or Eric shot it, unlike the factory-farmed animal.)

I am with Susan on this.

Great article, brenda. Thank you.