<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:401px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/50ba3b8cecad04341400000a-794/jovan-belcher.jpg?maxX=401&amp;maxY=299" border="0" alt="jovan belcher" width="401" height="299" /></div><p class="source"><a href="www.apimages.com">AP Images</a></p></div>KMBC.com is <a href="http://www.kmbc.com/news/kansas-city/Autopsy-Jovan-Belcher-drunk-when-he-shot-girlfriend-self/-/11664182/18122644/-/fbrotdz/-/index.html?absolute=true&amp;utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=kmbc">reporting that Jovan Belcher's autopsy report shows that he was drunk the morning he killed his girlfriend and himself</a>.</p>
<p>Belcher's autopsy results show he had .179 mg of alcohol in his system which is twice the legal limit in Missouri.</p>
<p>On the morning of December 1, 2012, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/kansas-city-chiefs-shooting-2012-12">Belcher fatally shot his girlfriend following an argument and then drove to the Kansas City Chief's practice facility where he shot himself</a> in front of former head coach Romeo Crennel and former GM Scott Pioli.</p>
<p>Hours before he shot his girlfriend, <a href="http://www.kmbc.com/news/kansas-city/Autopsy-Jovan-Belcher-drunk-when-he-shot-girlfriend-self/-/11664182/18122644/-/fbrotdz/-/index.html?absolute=true&amp;utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=kmbc">police found him in his car sleeping in front of an apartment building</a>. Police talked to Belcher who said he was going to visit a friend in the apartment complex and wasn't planning on driving anywhere. The officers asked Belcher to get out of the car and go into the apartment "because he had a lot to lose."</p>

Jovan Belcher Was Drunk When He Shot His Girlfriend And Himself

<ul class="summary-list"><li>I'm from the Midwest and grew up with football everywhere. </li><li>I also played football when I was in high school — and broke some bones  doing so.</li></ul><p>As a red-blooded, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.insider.com/new-york-city-midwest-life-differences-2019-8">Midwestern</a> boy born into Generation X, I grew up eating, sleeping, and breathing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.insider.com/taylor-swift-travis-kelce-guide-to-football-swifties-nfl-2023-9">football</a>. I vividly remember, at age 10, watching the San Francisco 49ers hammer <a target="_blank" href="https://www.insider.com/1983-nfl-draft-first-round-quarterbacks-2018-4">Dan Marino</a> and my beloved Miami Dolphins in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.insider.com/best-usher-songs">Super Bowl</a> XIX.</p><p>I loved to play, too. I sweat, bled, and broke bones between the lines in high school. I nearly walked on with the local Big Ten program, but I wound up covering the team for the school paper. I grew into a career as a sportswriter, and, to my delight, I was handed the keys to the kingdom: press-row seats covering college football and the NFL for national publications.</p><p>So years later, when my own boys — spoon-fed fantasy football, Sunday Ticket, and all the lore of the game that I could pass down to them — came bounding into my basement office one day to ask whether they could join a youth football league, my answer should have been as emphatic as an end-zone dance.</p><p>Instead, I surprised even myself. "I'm sorry," I said. "But no."</p><h2>I would knock heads and see stars</h2><p>As a kid, I watched games with my dad, tossed wobbly spirals to buddies in the backyard, and relished every autumn Friday night I got to stick my cleats in the grass and my shoulder pads into some other pimply teenager.</p><p>Every so often, though, it wasn't my pads doing the sticking. I can recall one occasion when, with our school facing its cross-town rival, I wound up in what amounted to a one-on-one smackdown with the opponent's safety, each of us chugging full speed at the other, play after play — and too often colliding helmets-first.</p><p>Knock heads, see stars, rinse, repeat. It was all part of the game, right? And I couldn't get enough of it.</p><p>Even now, I distinctly remember the all-day anticipation of game night, the full-body tingle I felt before every snap, and the primal gratification of a clean, lungs-emptying hit. Didn't I want my boys — my athletic, red-blooded Midwestern boys — to experience the same gridiron thrills their old man once lived for?</p><h2>It's my obligation as their dad to keep them safe</h2><p>As it turns out, no. By the time my kids were old enough to begin participating in organized sports, the curtain had begun to be pulled back on the game — and what we saw was ugly. Rampant head-impact injuries, concussions, and a degenerative brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Better helmets, contact-dampening rule changes — none of it could fully remove the blunt force from the game.</p><p>Many former NFL players, we learned, were being greeted in retirement by titanic physical, mental, and emotional struggles, which a growing body of research increasingly associated with CTE. A raft of former NFL tough guys — Andre Waters, Ray Easterling — were suddenly killing themselves. Dave Duerson shot himself in the chest so that his brain could be studied after his death. Junior Seau ended his life similarly. Jovan Belcher, while still an active player, fatally shot his girlfriend before taking his own life.</p><p>Of course, not every NFL player winds up with CTE. And though it has been found in a vast majority of those tested, not all of them turn to violence or self-harm. Still, many suffer from debilitating symptoms. And the risks start well before a player turns pro.</p><p>CTE has been found in college and high-school players. The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-football-raises-risk-chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy#:~:text=Every%20additional%20year%20playing%20football,odds%20of%20developing%20severe%20CTE."><u>latest research</u></a> paints a grim picture: Experts commissioned by the National Institutes of Health recently found that "every additional year playing football was associated with 15% increased odds of a CTE diagnosis and, for those with CTE, 14% increased odds of severe CTE."</p><p>When the film "Concussion" was released in 2015, we saw it as a family. Based on the real-life findings of Dr. Bennet Omalu, who is credited with discovering the link between CTE and NFL players, the movie left an impression on my boys.</p><p>I don't know that they fully absorbed the narrative in that moment, but I used it as an opportunity to help them understand why I had declared the game off-limits. "It's my job — it's my obligation — as your dad to keep you safe," I told them. "I wouldn't let you walk into traffic. And I wasn't going to let you play football, either."</p>

I grew up playing football, but I won't let my kids play it

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="CBS/screenshot" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54124937eab8eaa175bc2abd-960/cbs-sports-james-brown.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54124937eab8eaa175bc2abd-1200-924/cbs-sports-james-brown.png" border="0" alt="CBS Sports James Brown" /></a><p class="source"><span>CBS/screenshot</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>CBS Sports' announcer James Brown delivered a remarkable monologue on the problem of domestic violence during his pre-game show on Thursday, addressing a problem that "is bigger than football" just days after a video was released showing ex-Ravens player Ray Rice <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ray-rice-video-2014-9">knocking his fiancee unconscious in an elevator.</a></p>
<p>"Now let's be clear, this problem is bigger than football," Brown said. "There has been, appropriately so, intense and widespread outrage following the release of the video showing what happened inside the elevator at the casino. But wouldn't it be productive if this collective outrage, as my colleagues have said, could be channelled to truly hear and address the long-suffering cries for help by so many women?"</p>
<p>Brown opened his remarks by highlighting his attempt two years ago to challenge the NFL community after Kansas City Chiefs linebacker <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1861645-a-year-after-jovan-belchers-final-act-friends-offer-clues-to-tragic-downfall">Jovan Belcher shot and killed</a> his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins, before driving to the team's facility and killing himself in front of his head coach and general manager.</p>
<p>"Yet here we are again dealing with the same issue of violence against women," Brown said.</p>
<p>NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has come under intense criticism for initially suspending Rice for just two games, while the league <a href="https://twitter.com/jeffzrebiecsun/status/508979944865927168">claimed</a> it had not seen the video of the incident until earlier this week. Meanwhile, an Associated Press <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-end-of-roger-goodell-2014-9">report</a> which cited a <keyword id="6355470" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Law">law</keyword> enforcement official said the league received the full tape in April.</p>
<p>Here are his full remarks:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Two years ago I challenged the NFL community and all men to seriously confront the problem of domestic violence, especially coming on the heels of the murder-suicide of Kansas City Chiefs football player Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins. Yet, here we are again dealing with the same issue of violence against women.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Now let's be clear, this problem is bigger than football. There has been, appropriately so, intense and widespread outrage following the release of the video showing what happened inside the elevator at the casino. But wouldn't it be productive if this collective outrage, as my colleagues have said, could be channelled to truly hear and address the long-suffering cries for help by so many women? And as they said, do something about it? Like an on-going education of men about what healthy, respectful manhood is all about.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">And it starts with how we view women. Our language is important. For instance, when a guy says, 'you throw the ball like a girl' or 'you're a little sissy,' it reflects an attitude that devalues women and attitudes will eventually manifest in some fashion. Women have been at the forefront in the domestic violence awareness and prevention arena. And whether Janay Rice considers herself a victim or not, millions of women in this country are.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Consider this: According to domestic violence experts, more than three women per day lose their lives at the hands of their partners. That means that since the night February 15th in Atlantic City [when the Ray Rice incident occurred] more than 600 women have died.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">So this is yet another call to men to stand up and take responsibility for their thoughts, their words, their deeds and as Deion [Sanders] says to give help or to get help, because our silence is deafening and deadly."</p>
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Jovan Belcher Was Drunk When He Shot His Girlfriend And Himself

Leah Goldman

I grew up playing football, but I won't let my kids play it

Jason Langendorf

James Brown Delivers Remarkable Monologue On NFL's 'Deafening And Deadly' Silence On Domestic Violence

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