In the now viral video that shows Ray Rice in an Atlantic City elevator with his then fiancée, he's seen punching her so hard she was knocked out cold.
The violence in the video is something Katrinia Freeman knows all too well.
"Just dropped her like whatever, like she was trash,” Freeman says. “You look at him on the camera and he has no remorse at all and those are the most dangerous men, the ones that have no remorse over what they do,” she says.
It's been ten years since her abusive relationship, but she still has a scar on her jaw from her last kick in the face. She knew then it had to end.
“If it wasn`t a punch in the face it was a kick in the ribs,” Freeman says. “If it wasn`t a kick in the ribs it was stepping on my back, stepping on my hair, kicking me in the face. I went through a lot and I went through it alone.”
She now works at the Portsmouth shelter that took her in after her abuse. She now helps other victims.
Freeman says she knows what Janay is going through. Janay's response, she says, is typical of a domestic abuse victim.
In an Instagram post Janay wrote: "To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his ass off for all his life just to gain ratings is a horrific. This is our life!"
“I thought this is a battered woman. This is a woman who has been sheltered by him, who has been brainwashed by him.”
Rice's contract with the Ravens was terminated and he received an indefinite suspension from the NFL.
Since airing the video a number of NewsChannel 3 viewers have called in to voice their opinion on Rice's punishment. Several were women who felt rice should get another shot to redeem himself.
“At some point we have to put our foot down and these men cannot get away with it,” Freeman says. “These men and these women cannot get away with it. If we let one go, just a little bit and give him that chance one more time, he`s going to do it again. Who is to say he`s not abusing her now? I`m scared for her. I really am.”
