On a spring weekend last year, a passenger rode in an Uber minivan on a Dallas highway, intending to meet some friends for a meal. She never made it there.
It was just after 6 p.m., a day before Easter, and the driver of a car in a neighboring lane was traveling home. Those plans, upended, too.
Two cars turned the same busy freeway into their personal race track, causing a six-car crash that sent a silver hatchback into the next lane, a white SUV into a 180-degree tailspin and the minivan sprawling sideways across two lanes of high-speed traffic.
All of them, vehicles and passengers, were initially left stranded, victims of a reckless decision.
Why am I reminding you of this 19 months later?
Well, a handful of Chiefs players are apparently in need of the reminder, after they donned shirts before the Chiefs-Eagles game Sunday that demanded justice not for those injured passengers, but for the driver allegedly streaking 119 miles per hour down the highway:
Rashee Rice.
“FREE 4” read a T-shirt worn by tight end Travis Kelce and some of the team’s wide receivers, such as Tyquan Thornton and Hollywood Brown, as they warmed up before the game, the “4” referring to Rice’s jersey number.
Free him from what, exactly? Consequences for his actions?
There is no whodunnit to this story, no argument for a case of the wrongly accused. The video of the crash is a horror flick, not a mystery.
The ramifications of that March 2024 event left behind several victims, but Rice is not one of them — not a victim of the real-world justice system that offered just 30 days in jail, nor the NFL’s version of it that suspended him for the initial six games of the season. They were literally left behind, by the way, with Rice and his buddies walking away from the scene without yet knowing everyone had miraculously survived the damage they inflicted.
A T-shirt calling for Rice’s freedom implies he should just skate altogether.
At its least harmful, the message players wore across their chests Sunday trivializes a life-altering situation as inconsequential and secondary for those who lack the fame and platform to remind us of the permanent effects. Marc Lenahan, an attorney for one of those victims in a civil case, told me his client “is living anything but pain-free.”
The driver will miss six weeks of football.
Kelce did not speak with the media after the game. In response to a question from The Star’s Vahe Gregorian, Thornton said he was “just supporting my brother, man. He wishes he could be out here with us competing at a high level. Got a lot of love for him.”
The reason behind the shirts matters. But the implications matter, too. And professional athletes who spend every day in the spotlight, one of them occupying the league’s brightest spotlight and loudest microphone, ought to be acutely aware of that.
It’s almost certainly more tin-eared than poor intentions, but they wore the shirts in a stadium that seats 76,000. It’s on them to put considerably more thought into how their broadcasted statement would be received. They either didn’t give that a second thought, or they did, and the latter might be worse.
The motivation is indeed probably as Thornton described it, to simply exhibit love and support for a teammate. But that message would have resonated just the same with the photo collage of Rice across the front and absent the words atop it.
The “FREE 4” headline is an insinuation of injustice, as though Rice, who woke up one morning, rented a Lamborghini SUV, hopped inside and barreled down a busy road at 119 miles per hour according to a police account, is some sort of modern-day Nelson Mandela to be revered.
He is instead a man who pleaded guilty to two felonies captured on video before receiving a suspension from his employer after putting the lives of others in considerable danger. He took part in a street race, bystanders be damned, a crime that has produced grave effects in Kansas City.
Maybe there’s not a need to relitigate that day, but that’s only because it already has been litigated. Rice was not railroaded by an unfair system but rather is the product of its benefit to those with means to have the ability to fully and adequately defend themselves. As far as exemplars go, those inclined to offer wardrobe support could find a better follow and a better way.
Rice has shown contrition in his interviews with local media and through several statements his attorney has made on his behalf. He says he’s a different person, and credits changing his surroundings. Well, we can only hope those in his circle aren’t also informing him he ought to be absolved from punishment.
Real-life decisions come with real-life consequences. And if on that March evening, some passengers merely trying to travel back home or meet some friends for dinner suffered those consequences to no fault of their own, why should No. 4 be free from any?