New Jersey State Police Say NFL Statement Is Inaccurate

This morning, the NFL released a statement that doubled down on its assertion that it had never seen footage of Ray Rice knocking out Janay Palmer in an elevator until yesterday. That statement isn't quite right, according to New Jersey state police.

Again, here is what the NFL had to say this morning:

"Security for Atlantic City casinos is handled by the New Jersey State Police. Any videos related to an ongoing criminal investigation are held in the custody of the state police. As we said yesterday: We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator. That video was not made available to us."

But buried within this ESPN story about Janay Palmer is this passage:

In response to inquiries from ABC News, the New Jersey State Police said the statement from the NFL is not accurate.

"Investigations of incidents on the casino floor are handled by the NJSP, but this occurred in the elevator and was handled by the [Atlantic City Police Department]," an NJSP spokesman said. "We never had the video."

It's certainly possible that whoever drafted this morning's statement from the NFL simply confused the New Jersey state police with the Atlantic City police. It's also barely possible that the NFL never actually took the time to figure out which department actually had the tape, and only ever requested it from a police department that didn't have it. Or maybe this morning's statement—seemingly proof that the league did its due diligence—was a bit of sleight of hand from a league growing increasingly well-practiced in the art of misdirection.