Chiefs RB Kareem Hunt has just been cut as a result of a hotel altercation in Cleveland earlier this year. TMZ published the surveillance video showing Hunt pushing a woman in the hallway, twice, and lightly kicking her. After reviewing the video of the incident and of the police interviews with the alleged victim and other witnesses, I say......GB should consider putting in a waiver claim for Hunt.
Why? It's quite clear from those videos that the woman is lying to the police. She's painting herself as an innocent victim, minding her own business, who was inexplicably assailed by Hunt. The video clearly shows that to be false. She's aggressive and the instigator of whatever is happening. She approaches Hunt, who shoves her out of his space, twice. Then Hunt gets pulled back into his room by another guy and girl. A few moments later Hunt re-emerges and tries to free himself from someone restraining him. In the process, he rams into a guy who was preventing the girl from following Hunt into his room. That guy had just been aggressively shoved by the girl. After being contacted from behind by Hunt, the guy falls forward and ends up pushing the girl down in front of him. The girl, drunk according to other witnesses, gets up briefly, then goes down into a squat position. At that point, Hunt approaches and lightly kicks her in the butt, not even knocking her over, before returning to the room.
What happened here wasn't in any way comparable to what Ray Rice did, which was disgusting. This was a guy defending himself, albeit too aggressively, from a women getting in his face and instigating a confrontation at the door of his hotel room. After investigating, no charges were filed by police. They apparently didn't think a crime was committed. In the wake of the Rice incident, the Chiefs have seemingly made a PR decision in order to avoid any backlash. What Hunt did might warrant some type of suspension, but it isn't the type of offense that should impact his career, long-term. Some team will likely claim him, he's a top player on his rookie deal. Adrian Peterson has done far worse, to a child, and he's still playing.
