Agreed. It's all about the video. Chad Johnson headbutt his then wife Evelyn a couple years ago and there were pictures of the injuries to her forehead. But he was immediately cut by the Dolphins and hasn't been back in the NFL. But not only did we not really hear anything from the NFL about the incident regarding how they would handle Chad or make rules changes to domestic violence policies, we barely heard of any public outcry on the matter.
I'm sure there have been other incidents of some types of domestic violence we never even heard or read about. This case happened to be accompanied by that initial video of Rice dragging his fiance out of the elevator and then the more recent video from inside the elevator. The public reacts to video (and in some cases audio), not unseen or unheard incidents. The video is what has made this the story it has become. If there were no videos, Rice probably is still playing for the Ravens and the NFL would have justified it the way they did initially by telling the public they had more information about the incident than the public. And the public would buy it, and then it blows over after a little while.
Video and/or audio evidence is often a public trigger on how a story is perceived.
And how Rice's wife has reacted is essentially inconsequential. Perhaps she really truly loves Ray Rice and forgives him. But there's also the possibility she weighed that incident and how she feels about Rice against her million dollar lifestyle and now the possibility of her husband not making millions of dollars every year going forward. Whether true or not, we can assume that at least played a factor in why she has stayed with him, married him, and is now continuing to defend him. Maybe she feels that her lifestyle and being set for life is worth that knockout punch.
The NFL and the Ravens dropped the ball on this, but also the prosecutor. In every aspect of this story, it's all about the money.