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AJ McKenzie
  • 4 days ago
Very personal
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
Transcript
00:11Hello, I'm Chris Fowler for SportsCentury.
00:14All he ever wanted to be was a famous football player, and so he became one.
00:19Not for leading the league in tackles or for being named the Super Bowl MVP,
00:23or even for anchoring one of the stiffest defenses in NFL history.
00:26Ray Lewis found fame during the investigation of a double homicide.
00:31But then, throughout his tumultuous life, murder has been a recurring and tragic theme.
00:47As a football player, Ray Lewis may be the best defensive football player of all time.
01:01I've been watching football now for 60 years.
01:04I've never seen a better middle linebacker, ever.
01:08Really?
01:09He has that animal instinct.
01:11That's my meal.
01:13I gotta get my meal.
01:16He's kind of a human tackling machine.
01:18It's like sharks are eating machines.
01:20I feel like Ray is a, you know, belt to tackle.
01:25On the field, he plays a game violent.
01:27He runs in the guy, smacks him around, and gets up and let him know he smacked him around.
01:33It's hard for people to fathom that anybody that plays so as ferociously as he does on the field could
01:41not have done what he was accused of doing off the field.
01:44Moments ago, Atlanta police announced that they have arrested and charged Baltimore Ravens football player Ray Lewis with the murders
01:52of two Decatur men in Buckhead last night following the Super Bowl.
01:57In the early morning of January 31st, 2000, Ray Lewis, with ten others, left an Atlanta nightclub and began piling
02:04into his 37-foot stretch limo.
02:07One member of the entourage, Reginald Oakley, was arguing from Akron, Ohio.
02:12The Akron group attracted the attention of the Lewis group, but not the other way around.
02:16By their own admission, they were mouthing off.
02:18Lakeley is kind of a sharp tug and couldn't have any problem getting into it verbally with people passing by
02:25on the street.
02:26Ray Lewis says he tried to stop the fight.
02:28He testified that at one point he managed to get Reginald Oakley back into the limousine to try and stop
02:33the fight.
02:33It really didn't work.
02:35Somebody peed their head in the limo and said something about come get these guys if something's gonna happen on
02:40them.
02:41Lewis dubbed Oakley, wishing a smart face, the irate Akron man, who had been joined by two friends, Richard Lawler,
02:48Baker.
02:48Lawler shouted an insulting expletive.
02:51Baker, holding a champagne bottle, turned and turned back towards the limo, and the Akron group followed.
02:57Reginald Oakley charged out of the limousine, and he was hit over the head by a champagne bottle.
03:05And then after that, it was kind of like all bets were off.
03:08I remember him choke, you know, kick, punch, a couple things.
03:12When he was choking me, I think I closed my eyes or something.
03:15When I opened back my eyes up, I didn't see nothing.
03:18When I got free, he crawled back to the car and got in.
03:23I'm thinking I didn't got away with my life.
03:25Jason Baker was chased and then slammed the ground and punched by somebody down by the intersection.
03:32Right before he died, Richard Lawler came wandering over, having been mortally wounded, and looked and then just fell right
03:41near him.
03:43That's not what I want.
03:45Shane.
03:46What do we get down?
03:48That's not what people talk about him actually being the murderer.
03:53The way, the way, he just happened to know the murders.
03:58What's going on?
04:00Grandview and T-Mart, they just got hit in the head with champagne bottle.
04:04Laying down in the street.
04:05I got shocked body, Grandview and these places are very shocked man.
04:10As Lawler and Baker lay bleeding to death from stab wounds to the chest and abdomen,
04:15Lewis' group re-entered the limo, and one of the Akron men fired at the vehicle with a handgun.
04:20One line after another after another.
04:23And I'm sitting there thinking, I'm like, man, everybody, everybody should have died in this car.
04:29Because I'm like, we ain't doing no well.
04:33I'm like, me in a coffin.
04:35That's all I kept thinking.
04:36And I said, we just might as well put some dirt over the car because it's a coffin.
04:41Shortly after finding a knife at the scene, police identified the bullet riddle limo in a hotel parking lot about
04:47a mile away.
04:48Blood traces of Baker, Oakley, and Joseph Sweeting were discovered in the vehicle.
04:53A blood from Baker and Oakley was also found in the hotel lobby bathroom.
04:57And the room at another hotel registered under the name of Ray Lewis.
05:02Police were found in the pro bowler later that morning.
05:09Lewis was evasive.
05:11Didn't remember anybody's names.
05:12He was not cooperative.
05:14He was not truthful.
05:15And the investigators suspected at that point that he was not telling the truth.
05:19Ray Lewis lied to the police early on, and they knew that he lied.
05:24And from then on, things in the legal system went terribly awry for him.
05:29The police had begun to form an impression of Mr. Lewis as an uncooperative witness.
05:33So they went back to headquarters.
05:35They reported this to their supervisors.
05:36And the supervisor said, let's arrest him.
05:40Later that day, Lewis was charged with two counts of homicide.
05:44And on February 10th, Oakley and Sweeting were also charged.
05:48It was the second time in a month that an NFL player faced a murder rap.
05:52Early in January, Carolina proceeded to...
05:54Ray Carruth, he actually did...
05:58Well, he paid someone to do that.
06:00And it was his own pregnant girlfriend or fiance or wife or something like that.
06:07And he actually did it.
06:09Ray Carruth had been indicted for planning the killing of his pregnant girlfriend.
06:14One of the worst things Ray Lewis had going for him was Ray Carruth.
06:18They were immediately lumped in to the same category.
06:22It's the Rays.
06:23They were poster boys for everything that was wrong with the NFL player.
06:28We've had all these stories about professional athletes, particularly National Football League players,
06:33getting in trouble with the law.
06:34It was just like one in a series of things that we've seen all along in society.
06:39Gosh, have we ever heard of a football player trying to get out of a murder before?
06:44Well, yes.
06:45And they thought, we don't want this to be another O.J.
06:49They did have blood.
06:51They did have a weapon.
06:52They had tested the weapon.
06:53They had eyewitness testimony.
06:55It's basic building blocks of a criminal case.
06:58I was shocked.
06:59When I found out, I couldn't believe it.
07:01I was like, not Ray Lewis.
07:02I think it was the night before.
07:05Club 112 was outside the parking lot.
07:08People started spraying mace.
07:10And people started running.
07:12First thing Ray said, hey man, I'm too pretty to go up in the club where they're spraying mace.
07:17And I ain't about no fighting.
07:19Here's the exact words.
07:21I'm not about no fighting.
07:22I hit people for money on the football field.
07:25I ain't hitting nobody out of here for free.
07:27Here he was, the leading tackler in the NFL.
07:32And nobody knows who he is.
07:34All of a sudden, general America, the rest of America that isn't paying attention to football,
07:40sees Ray Lewis, the guy in the orange jumpsuit.
07:43He was repeatedly scarred by violence and death.
07:46When he was 15, his grandmother was accidentally shot in the leg outside a neighborhood bar while her companion was
07:53killed.
07:54Three years later, police fatally shot Ray's close friend, Remy King, during a bank holdup.
08:00Another childhood comrade, Timmy Moore, was murdered in 1996 while making a drug deal.
08:06To memorialize the deaths of King and Moore, Lewis bears tattoos on his chest and right shoulder.
08:13I'm sure it affected him very badly because those were kids that he played with.
08:17Those were kids that he grew up with.
08:19They all played football together.
08:20They didn't walk to school together.
08:22They rode home together.
08:23Having somebody close to you die, particularly in a violent way like that, I think gives you some kind of
08:28a metal.
08:28And I think it gave that to Ray Lewis, some kind of protective metal that everything else that goes on
08:34isn't going to matter as much
08:36because of what's happened to him and his friends in the past.
08:41In April of 1996, a month after Moore's murder, violence and death again brush close to Lewis.
08:49Close friend and University of Miami roommate Marlon Barnes and another student, Timwanika Lumpkins,
08:55were bludgeoned to death by her ex-boyfriend.
08:58When I opened the door, I couldn't open the door.
09:01His body was pressed against the door.
09:02And when I opened the door, I saw a bunch of red.
09:05It was blood.
09:06But I thought it was some spilled juice because you're not expecting anything like that.
09:10And to see somebody beating to death like that when his face is completely like just torn up, it was
09:17very tough.
09:19He disappeared for a couple of days, went to Daytona, was just riding around, driving, crying,
09:25dialing Marlon Barnes' beeper number out of memory, trying to find him, not believing it, put his piss through a
09:32hotel room wall.
09:34When Ray did come home, it was like two days later.
09:36And he just, you know, just crying.
09:38His face was all puffed out.
09:40His eyes was big.
09:41And I said, Ray, never in your life do that to me again.
09:43And he said, Mama, I just had to be alone.
09:48On the day of his fallen friend's funeral, Lewis, inflicted by the forces of grief and joy,
09:55chose to attend his draft party because he felt Barnes would have wanted it that way.
09:59Lewis still honors Barnes by wearing a picture of him on a T-shirt under his Ravens uniform.
10:05A lot of people don't know, you know, how he wake up in cold sweats, how he have nightmares from
10:10Marlon all the way up to me.
10:12He tries to talk to him before the game to the point that he's come out on the field on
10:17occasion crying
10:21because he's gone to a very dark place to gather his fuel for Sunday.
10:25It's an exceptionally dark place.
10:27He's talking to a man he loved who died, who was murdered brutally in the home that they lived in.
10:34The emotional battle, pain, trauma, if you know, that Ray Lewis went through early in his life
10:41would very easily, just for survival, create a situation in which he would want to shut down.
10:48Shut down in the sense of focusing on the game.
10:52On that football field on Sunday.
10:54Here he is right now, the glowing nuclear epicenter of the most ravenous defense for one year
11:02that any NFL field has ever seen.
11:05He wants to be exceptionally hard, tough, seen as somebody not to be messed with.
11:13Ray was born in May of 1975 to 15-year-old Buffy Jenkins and Ray Jackson, who was 19.
11:20When he was still in grammar school, his father abandoned the family.
11:25Upon entering Lakeland's Kathleen High School, he took the name of the man his mother was dating
11:30and became Ray Lewis.
11:32You always still want to be a part of your father, no matter how much you've been in.
11:36So that probably motivated him more to the point of like,
11:39I'm going to show him, I'm going to prove to him, he's going to be proud that I was his
11:43son.
11:43With the guy not around, I'm sure that Ray felt an awesome loneliness and perhaps a sense of abandonment.
11:50There was just this sense that the guy left me, and the heck with him.
11:54There's a poisonous feeling there, it's not indifference.
11:58There's a hatred there and an anger in his voice when he talks about it even still.
12:07When Lewis discovered that Ray Jackson dominated the gridiron and wrestling mat at the same
12:12high school he was attending, he privately declared war in the athletic memory of the
12:16man who walked out on him.
12:19What?
12:19He wanted to erase his daddy name completely.
12:22All the records took, you know, and he did it.
12:25And every record that his father had, he broke it.
12:27So his father's name is Erased, and Ray named it.
12:30He was about a 15-foot pitcher hanging my mouth with him in the jam.
12:33I went, nah, if he said he was going to do something like that, Dale, he pretty much did it.
12:37If my dad rejected me, he could have just sat in the corner and said, well, I'm not any good.
12:42But no, Ray said, okay, if you didn't want me, I'm going to prove to you that he probably blew
12:46it.
12:47Here's someone who thought he had been wronged or not treated with respect,
12:51and he set out to overcome that and perhaps evoke a sense of revenge through his own success.
12:59The rage inside Lewis also burned bright on Kathleen High's football field,
13:04where he starred as a linebacker, running back, and kick returner.
13:08Yet Lewis sat at the end of the bench in the classroom.
13:11Recruiters backed off as he repeatedly scored poorly on the college entrance exam.
13:16When he finally qualified on the fifth attempt,
13:19only the University of Miami had a scholarship open.
13:22Ray makes a statement the first week he's there.
13:25I'm going to be the best linebacker to ever play at the University of Miami.
13:29He was one of those guys who would go 110% every single play,
13:33not only in games, but 110% in practice.
13:36It's hard to find that in a player,
13:38because a lot of players will take a playoff here to take a playoff there.
13:41Ray wasn't one of those guys, and I admired that, and I respected that.
13:45That effort paid off when starting middle linebacker Robert Bass
13:48was injured in the second game of the 1993 season.
13:51When Lewis became the first crew freshman to start at Miami in five years.
13:59Ray came in wide-eyed, but focused and intent on making his name.
14:04He walked in the hood all wide-eyed.
14:06He looked around and he said,
14:08Uh-uh.
14:09Canes, too.
14:11And I looked at him, I said,
14:12Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
14:13I said, listen, son.
14:14If you're going to be the middle backer at the University of Miami,
14:17you've got to be your hug.
14:19It was like something clicked in it.
14:23After football practice, after classes, after weight training,
14:28he'd be in the dorm room throwing playing cards on the floor of the dorm.
14:35Whatever number came up, he'd do that many push-ups.
14:39He'd do a thousand a night.
14:41He plays an elephant.
14:42He plays a machine.
14:43You've never seen a more finely conditioned athlete.
14:46He loves it.
14:48He loves to go to the weight room.
14:49He loves to go out.
14:51Yeah, Miami having both Sapp and Ray Lewis was unfair.
14:58He loves to go out and just act.
15:00Ray was always a great leader.
15:02He had huge respect in the locker room because he walked the wall,
15:07but he talked the talk.
15:11After leading the Big East in tackles as a sophomore and junior,
15:15Lewis, an All-American, 1996 NFL draft.
15:18At 6'1 and 230 pounds, his size was questioned.
15:2225 names were announced before he was selected by the Ravens.
15:26In his second season, he erased all doubts when his 210 tackles were the most in the league.
15:34Ray's whole life, he's faced people telling him what he can't do.
15:39You're too small.
15:40You're too this.
15:41You're too that.
15:42And at every turn, he's used that as a catalyst to say, well, I'm just going to have to show
15:46you, too.
15:47It started with, I'm going to be better than my father at rest, and he was.
15:51I'm going to be the best University of Miami linebacker there's ever been, and he was.
15:56I'm going to win a championship, and he has.
16:00I'm going to the Hall of Fame.
16:02He's headed that way.
16:05His quarterback, he's very sad to see him until, you know, you see him getting off where you'd see Big
16:1052.
16:10I've never seen a player like Ray Lewis.
16:12I've never seen a more dedicated player devoted to his craft.
16:18Anyway, including Jim Brown.
16:20When you combine his knowledge of the game, the ability to inspire others, and then he is a physical fool.
16:29The physicality is like a dick.
16:31He became an intact player the way middle linebackers were years ago.
16:36I just like the intensity that he plays with.
16:38Ray only has one goal.
16:39That's to be the best middle linebacker ever.
16:42Matter of fact, I interviewed him one time, and I asked him what was his goal,
16:45and what he just said, when I die, I want to put him to put on my team still.
16:49Ray Lewis, the best linebacker ever.
16:52He's the greatest middle linebacker now.
16:58If Ray Lewis, the all-pro linebacker, was forged in a childhood of abandonment, violence, and death,
17:04there also was the responsibility for his younger brother and three sisters.
17:09When I was working, Ray used to have to get up at night, make sure the kids had breakfast,
17:13and he was still in the school with ponytails going every which way.
17:17He had to be like the father figure for him.
17:19So she was working, and so he would have to babysit and keep the kids and look after them.
17:23Ray was in the NFL, second year he was going to his third.
17:27He took his sister, Kadeja, to the high school park.
17:29And when he walked in, nobody could believe Ray Lewis.
17:32Not this guy.
17:33You know, he's a big-time celebrity.
17:35Why did he bring his sister to the park?
17:36But that was an honor for Ray.
17:39When Lewis was a high school junior, his home life changed dramatically.
17:44His mother had remarried and moved away from Lakeland.
17:47But Ray chose to stay at Kathleen High and went to live with his grandparents,
17:51Elise and Gillis McKinney.
17:54Ray did not grow up in the community.
17:56He grew up in a loving community, a hard-working community, a community with pride.
18:00Ray didn't come out of a place, a street that you got to walk on where you got to duck
18:05bullets and paint.
18:06That's not true.
18:06Ray was always raised in the church.
18:09He was a member of the FCA, fellow Christian athletes.
18:12He knew that Mrs. McKinney expected him to be up on Sunday morning and get to that church.
18:19But if Lewis stayed out of trouble in Lakeland, he couldn't avoid it at the University of Miami,
18:24where he was twice investigated for abusive behavior.
18:27In October of 1994, he allegedly grabbed his girlfriend, Tatiana McCall, by the throat.
18:33In the following September, he allegedly grabbed Arnold by the shoulder
18:37in an effort to restrain her in a quarrel with McCall.
18:40Charges were not filed in either case.
18:42Why is the second one amused?
18:43The girl said that he had hit her, and they called the cannabis police when I was right there,
18:46and the guy denies us, girl.
18:48Each incident is always more than one girl.
18:51You know, one girl was trying to pull it this way, the other girl was trying to pull it that
18:54way.
18:54There may be two or three too many women in his life,
18:57and that the volatility comes from the number of women, not from the women themselves.
19:03Trouble with women followed Lewis into the prose.
19:06Two months before the Atlanta killings, he was accused of assault
19:09in a brawl involving three women in a Baltimore bar.
19:12What?
19:12After the state attorney's office dropped the charges, a jury awarded Lewis $10,000 in 2002.
19:19A civil suit brought by two of the women was filed in bad faith.
19:24A fight broke out between some girls that were there,
19:26and as we was walking through the crowd,
19:30this girl just actually looked up and looked at Ray.
19:33Yeah, that's Ray Lewis and all his friends.
19:35The next thing you notice, he's like, yeah, you hit me too.
19:37I'm like, what?
19:38How much of a coincidence is it for someone to be in the wrong place at the wrong time consistently?
19:44There were little hints of what was sort of below the surface of Ray Lewis, I think, in these incidents.
19:52The image of Lewis as an abuser is disputed by friends, family, and the Baltimore Ravens.
19:59Lewis, who has remained a bachelor, is a father to four children by two women.
20:04Three sons live with their mother in Orlando.
20:06His daughter lives with her mother near Ray's suburban Baltimore home.
20:11I think he's a great father and a great son.
20:14You know, they've got immediate people who've been...
20:17Who wouldn't know that?
20:18They wouldn't have the foggiest idea of what makes them tick as a human being.
20:22They don't see Ray with his family.
20:24They don't see...
20:27...the point family time.
20:29They don't see when we have a Bible study at Ray's house.
20:32When Ray steps off the field, he's a gentle lamb.
20:35I did it.
20:36Ray.
20:38Can I play the kids on tour?
20:40Yeah.
20:41Where they at?
20:42Come on, I'm going to follow you.
20:44He puts a lot of time, energy, and money into the community.
20:48As far as charities, he helps the kids around here.
20:51Hey, get a drink.
20:52Come on.
20:53Hey, get a drink.
20:55I got you, too.
20:56He is special to Ray.
20:57You know, they do a lot for him.
21:00And I think they keep him strong.
21:02So when he go back, you know, when he was a kid, and he know what he had to go
21:06through.
21:07But when he be by other kids, he gives them that joy and peace that he didn't have.
21:14In contrast to his loving moments with children are those in which Lewis partied heavily.
21:20One X-rated party, which included Atlanta murder co-defendant Joseph Sweeting, was videotaped in 1999.
21:28It certainly contradicted the people who were trying to paint him as this family man who was settling down and
21:36taking care of his kids and everything.
21:38But what was shown in that video was not a crime.
21:41Hey, look.
21:41We was in Cancun.
21:42Settling down?
21:43He was only 24.
21:46Cun.
21:47Look who's having a good time.
21:49This is my tape.
21:50I was out there partying.
21:51Ray was with me.
21:52Ray wasn't naked.
21:53What do you think a man's supposed to go to Cancun and be like, oh, I'm a football player.
21:56Don't touch me.
21:58He does talk endlessly about his family, about his kids, talks endlessly about God.
22:03And people can't juxtapose that with dancing, you know, on a beach in Mexico with a bunch of strippers.
22:11Ray has some issues.
22:13Ray likes to party.
22:14Ray likes to hang out.
22:16At the time before the murders, Ray had his little entourage, and you could see it growing.
22:20He hangs out with hard people, or he did hang out with hard people before the battle.
22:24There's a certain honor in that.
22:25It's sort of like carrying a gun into a nightclub.
22:28It gives off the correct scent, the scent you want, the testosterone scent, the masculine
22:33scent.
22:33And so you're soft if you didn't come from Scarred Street.
22:37Ray Lloyd ain't no thug.
22:39No, I'm a thug.
22:40All my boys, we rebels.
22:42You know what I'm saying?
22:42We live out.
22:44Whatever his goal in the NFL world will be, good luck to you.
22:48God bless you to play the gang, play the gang, stay out of the street, don't play in the street.
22:52He's always wanted fame and been unapologetic about it.
22:57That's the reason he was there that night in Atlanta, in a limo, in a fur with women.
23:02The Ravens won't say they were concerned publicly, but I know for a fact that they were.
23:07And that if Ray Lewis had made it back from Atlanta without being arrested, they would
23:12have had a meeting with him to start talking about some of the people he hung around.
23:17There was definitely concern.
23:24It was the scariest, loneliest time of his life.
23:28They put him in an area where there were a bunch of crazy people, so that there were
23:31people in there masturbating and screaming at the top of their lungs and doing all sorts
23:36of things.
23:36He said he wouldn't wish that on anybody.
23:38When I went to that jail and I saw Ray Lewis behind that blasphemy, it was probably one
23:46of the most depressing moments of my life.
23:48He said, Mr. Wright, I haven't killed anybody.
23:52Yet at first, the evidence against him mounted quickly.
23:56Within hours of the killings, Atlanta police collected bloodstains, a weapon at the scene,
24:01and knew Lewis had lied to them.
24:04He called them back and said, wait, I do have some information.
24:06I do want to help them.
24:08And the police said, okay, we're on our way out.
24:09And showed up, not with steno pads and pens, but with an arrest warrant.
24:13It didn't seem that they wanted to listen to what Lewis was going to say.
24:17They were interested in knowing who stabbed who.
24:20That was all they kept hammering away at Lewis with, was who stabbed who.
24:23And Lewis maintained that whole time.
24:26Hey, look, I don't know.
24:28I don't know who did the stabbing.
24:29I didn't see it.
24:30He refused to cooperate with the detectives who were trying to find out what happened.
24:35So I don't feel sorry for a guy who's in jail because he doesn't answer questions.
24:40With Lewis incarcerated, the police determined that Sweeting and Oakley had recently purchased knives at the nearby sporting goods store.
24:48When eyewitnesses described both men as active participants in the fight, they were charged along with Lewis.
24:56From the beginning, Mr. Lewis has deliberately lied, misled us, withheld information.
25:04We will continue to investigate these horrible killings and will not be swayed by fame or status or wealth of
25:13the suspects.
25:13Going into the case, the prosecution said they could put knives in the hands of Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting
25:20and that they could put Ray Lewis participating in the fight.
25:24Legally, they can all be convicted of being involved in a murder.
25:28There was never any indication or evidence or even a suggestion that Lewis himself wielded a knife or even outwardly
25:35encouraged it.
25:36Where were the fingerprints?
25:38Most damaging were statements by the limo driver, Dwayne Fassett, that placed Lewis in the middle of the brawl.
25:45The story changed.
25:46It just, it got better for the state every time.
25:49He went from not seeing anything to seeing a fight that Ray Lewis might have been involved in, in which
25:53Ray Lewis might have thrown a punch or two.
25:55What he ended up saying at the peak of his recollections was that he saw Mr. Lewis hitting one of
26:01the victims.
26:01He saw Mr. Oakley hustling with another one of the victims.
26:04And I believe Mr. Sweeting was going between the two.
26:06He also said that he heard one of them say, I stabbed mine, when they're driving away in the limousine.
26:13And the other guy respond, I stabbed mine too.
26:16Fassett overheard Lewis telling everybody in the limousine to shut up, to keep their mouth shut, that his football career
26:24was not going to end that way.
26:26When the coroner's initial report came back, it still sided exactly with what the witnesses were saying about the manner
26:31of punching.
26:32And you put the little blade in between your fingers, and you let the guy have it, and you let
26:36him have it in the meat of the torso, where you ain't going to miss.
26:41Sweeting, a friend of Lewiston's college, and Oakley, an acquaintance, had accumulated serious rap sheets.
26:47Oakley's offenses included assaulting a police officer and possession of a stolen vehicle.
26:51Sweeting has served three prison terms, was wanted for questioning the Miami...
26:57So the guy with a clear criminal record, a clear record, before this was getting blamed, but not the guys
27:04with actual criminal records.
27:08We had been linked to some street gangs that were involved in drive-by shootings, to a jewelry store, armed
27:17robberies.
27:18In a competition on the football field, I would bet on Lewis against the two of them.
27:23In a competition on the street, I would go with Oakley and Sweeting every time.
27:30In the murder trial, which began in May of 2000, the prosecution's case against Lewis began to show cracks.
27:38Jeff Gwynn, a member of the Akron Group, who had told police he saw Lewis fighting with the victims, changed
27:43his story,
27:44and said that there was tussling with them.
27:47The case against Lewis came unglued when Facet, the limo driver, testified.
27:52When he came in, the place was quiet as could be.
27:56He sat down, he rubbed his face, he breathed hard.
28:01He was looking like a man waiting to be executed.
28:04You could just watch him fall to pieces on the stand.
28:08It was like watching Sandcastle come apart.
28:10And just pieces started falling off of the story.
28:13The question for the jury is, did he not want to be there because he had told the police something
28:19that wasn't true?
28:20Or did he not want to be there because he was going to have to tell the truth against somebody
28:25that he liked and admired, Ray Lewis?
28:28All I saw was Ray come up like that and said, knock the s*** off.
28:33I didn't see him throw the punch.
28:34I didn't see a plan or nothing.
28:36With those words, Facet reversed the fortunes of Lewis.
28:40But the question lingered, why did he change his story?
28:44It's my understanding from people who were there, the detectives said, in the present tense, you see Ray there now.
28:52Don't you see Ray down there in the killing zone?
28:54Can't you see him?
28:55They kept putting words in Dwayne's mouth about Ray.
28:58I can tell you that what Dwayne testified to in court under oath was the truth.
29:02He told me about how he had been browbeaten, how he had been intimidated, how he was exhausted,
29:09how they were putting words in his mouth, and that Ray Lewis was innocent.
29:14I would think if there was any intimidation, it had a lasting effect here.
29:19It was intimidation from the defense, turning Facet away from the police version of what happened
29:25and toward a story that would help the defense.
29:29With their case against Lewis under siege, prosecutors struck a deal.
29:33They dropped the murder charge in return for Lewis pleading guilty to obstruction of justice and turning state's evidence.
29:40Part of his testimony focused on a conversation he had with Sweeting moments after the fight.
29:46He had the knife like anything like this, but Blake wasn't out or anything like that.
29:50So he had the knife like that.
29:51And I said, damn, man, what happened?
29:54He said, Lulu, every time he hit me, I hit them.
29:56I never told Ray that.
29:59I never told Ray that.
30:01Why did not murder anyone?
30:03When people look at that, there's two people dead.
30:05You automatically got to assume that, you know, somebody is guilty of the crime.
30:12And if I find out that anybody in that limo had did that, father can say they saved my life.
30:18We the jury find the defendant not guilty.
30:23We the jury find defendant not guilty.
30:26Was justice served?
30:28No, because two men died and nobody's in jail.
30:33Do we know what really happened?
30:35Do we know if it was self-defense?
30:38Well, that was very unclear.
30:40We really don't have a clear idea of what happened that night, thanks to a mediocre police investigation and a
30:46very bad job by the prosecutors.
30:48There was a politically motivated trial.
30:51The mayor, the county, everybody, the DA, all running for office.
30:55And they thought this was their platform to further their political career.
30:58The mayor of Atlanta, when our national president said, we will prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that Ray
31:06Lewis took a knife and stabbed two people to death.
31:10Can Ray Lewis ever overcome that?
31:21I'm sure he knows more than he's telling.
31:25He knows exactly what happened.
31:26He knows who did what and what his involvement was.
31:29My heart and understanding of losing someone, I've had that.
31:37If they're little, I have children myself.
31:40I would never hurt nobody's child.
31:42I think Ray Lewis put himself in a bad place.
31:47Knew he was putting himself in a bad place and liked being in a bad place.
31:57Ray might not understand that he is not going to be understood by the majority of the people because he
32:07has a greatness about him.
32:10And sometimes greatness brings about fear.
32:14During his 15 days in solitary confinement, Ray Lewis stayed active.
32:19Each night, he collapsed into sleep only after 1,500 push-ups and 500 sit-ups.
32:25When he was released on bond in mid-February to await trial, he was prohibited from drinking alcohol and had
32:31to be in his house by 9 p.m.
32:34He was like, yo, the worst thing they could have did was put me in my house and lock me
32:40up and tell me I got curfew.
32:41He said, now I'm going to be bigger, I'm going to be stronger, I'm going to be faster, and I'm
32:45going to be the best linebacker they've ever seen in their life.
32:47And he told me that, straight up.
32:50Ray said, you know what, I'm going to be proven innocent up here.
32:53But when I get to camp, I can't take three, four weeks to get in shape.
32:57Once I get the football field, all this is going to be behind me.
33:00Ray Lewis came into camp more aggressive, more knowing that his career, his family, and everything would have been taken
33:09away from him.
33:10So it gave him a more burning desire to be the best at what he does.
33:15He practiced like a wild man every day for the whole year.
33:23Who would have believed the Baltimore Ravens would be in a Super Bowl back in August?
33:28Ray Lewis believed it, and he literally willed that defense and that team to get where he needed to go.
33:37In a training field speech with Jim Brown in August, Lewis opened up to his teammates about the Atlanta incident.
33:44Everybody said, how is Rachel? How is Rachel? How is Rachel?
33:47How is Rachel? It's about my family.
33:49It's about what I was about in the courtroom.
33:51I didn't care about nothing because I had everybody else around me.
33:56Shannon picked me up every day.
33:57I didn't have no problems. I didn't worry about the court.
34:00All I was worried about was helping my team get to the Super Bowl.
34:04I just saw sincerity and strength.
34:07So he had to be humble.
34:09At the same time, he had to be strong.
34:12I don't care about being a linebacker a year.
34:15I don't care about going to the Pro Bowl.
34:16At the end of the year, I want to be in town.
34:18And when the dust settles, I want us to move everybody else.
34:25Among those he needed to persuade was the power base of the NFL.
34:30Before the 2000 season, the league fined Lewis $250,000 for his involvement with the Atlanta incident
34:36and threatened him with another $250,000 assessment if he violated his probation.
34:43He played the entire season like a man in search of vengeance.
34:48I remember some of those games.
34:50He was taunting himself.
34:52He's begging him.
34:53He's doing the Hulk Hogan routine.
34:55He was the ear loud and loud and loud.
34:58And the louder they jeered him, the better he played.
35:01I'm sitting on the sideline and I'm watching a guy and I'm just like,
35:05this dude is free.
35:06He's unstoppable.
35:07You turn on that film and watch him play.
35:10And you say, good God, everybody else is in slow motion.
35:14There were running backs who didn't want to play against the Ravens defense because of Ray Lewis.
35:17Corey Dillon didn't want to play against the Ravens.
35:19Jerome Bettis.
35:21Emmitt Smith.
35:22All these guys came to town and Ray Lewis was steamrolled.
35:28As the Ravens marched through the season,
35:30they set an NFL record for fewest points allowed in a 16-game season.
35:35160.
35:36Spiriting the attack was Lewis,
35:38whose 137 tackles led the team for the fifth straight season
35:42and won him the league's Defensive Player of the Year award.
35:45The ball is dropped by George and intercepted.
35:48And Ray Lewis down the sideline.
35:50Touchdown, Ray Lewis on the interception.
35:55After upsetting Tennessee and Oakland on the road to reach the Super Bowl,
35:59the wild card Ravens rallied behind Lewis against the national media
36:03that wouldn't let go of the murder trial.
36:06As much as some of you want to, we are not going to retry this.
36:11It's inappropriate, and you're not qualified.
36:14They ran over and over and over and over again about the orange cover art on TV.
36:19The man couldn't comb his hair in shackles and leg irons.
36:23Give him the same kind of press about being Defensive Player of the Year.
36:25I find it inexcusable that that organization from the top down,
36:30from the owner to the coach, went into that Super Bowl
36:33and somehow acted like Ray Lewis got a bad deal.
36:37Ray Lewis got a raw deal?
36:39Compared to who?
36:40The dead guy?
36:41He was in a no-win situation at the Super Bowl.
36:48Hey, there's this thing called the judicial system that says
36:53when you're innocent, you're innocent.
36:56He was found not guilty because they had no DNA evidence.
37:05I don't know.
37:06If he came out and apologized, he wasn't sorry enough.
37:10If he didn't come out and apologize, what he did,
37:15then he really was heartless.
37:17We're trying to win the Super Bowl.
37:18We're not here to focus on Ray Lewis.
37:20What Ray Lewis went through, that was a year ago.
37:22Let it go.
37:23The Super Bowl last year is the only time that I've ever been involved in an interview
37:26where I was asking him questions, and he was answering me,
37:29and I was frightened.
37:30Off the field, I think he's a very scary man.
37:33The real truth is, this was never about those two kids that were dead in the street.
37:36This was about Ray Lewis, and that's the same thing this was about,
37:39and that's not right.
37:39If I'm Ray Lewis, I am pleading with the world
37:44to believe me that I'm innocent, you know, trust me, and I'm sorry.
37:53No matter how much you poke and prod at him,
37:55he cannot explain to you in terms that are sufficient for America
37:59how sorry he is other than saying,
38:01I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, I've hurt the depths of my soul.
38:05But then when he says it, and he has, people don't believe it.
38:09Who are we to ask him to be sorry for something?
38:11Well, this is a civilized society, and I think we have a responsibility as human beings
38:15to treat life with dignity, and I thought that week he did not treat life with dignity.
38:22ESPN aired a segment with the victim's brothers, and Ray was disturbed by it.
38:29They want to brush it aside.
38:30I'm trying to bring it back out, telling everybody that I believe Ray Lewis killed my brother.
38:36It bothered him deeply.
38:37He understood when he saw that, that he didn't have much of a chance
38:43in terms of changing people's minds.
38:46I think Ray needed to rise above the anguished accusations of those families
38:56and show that he did have a heart.
39:00Fired to the brim with a bunker mentality,
39:03Lewis and his teammates took the field in Tampa for Super Bowl XXXV against the Giants.
39:09He grabs his chest, the gesture, and then he leans over and he picks up some of the grass
39:16and throws it.
39:17He's saying, screw you America, this is my time, this is my house, this is where I work.
39:23These next three or four hours belong to me.
39:26This is called the Kirby Shuffle, and that's named after a guy in the neighborhood
39:31who did the same kind of thing.
39:33And Ray does that to signal to the guys back home, you know, hey, I'm still with you.
39:40I'm still with you.
39:40Hey, I brought you this far, just ride with me.
39:43Come on my back and ride with me.
39:45Come on my back and ride with me.
39:46That defense, and Ray in particular, making that immediate statement
39:50that we are out here to harm you and do harm to you.
39:55It's personal today.
39:56It's personal.
39:58Hey, I'm assuming what bother me.
40:00I'm assuming what bother me.
40:01Everything that everybody's throwing at him all week, he built it into armor.
40:04He put that around him.
40:06And he went out there and he said, you can't touch me, you can't hurt me anymore,
40:08and I don't care what you're saying.
40:11The Ravens smothered the Giants 34-7.
40:15Baltimore's defense didn't allow a touchdown, as Lewis was all over the field.
40:19He's a knockdown four passes, tipping one that led to an interception.
40:25It was kind of a weak Super Bowl MVP.
40:29Hollywood wouldn't take a strip right there because no one would have believed it.
40:32If they didn't see it unfold before the eyes, no one would believe that a guy can go through
40:36what he's left with in five, six months.
40:39And didn't turn around and have a seat in the late half.
40:41When people try to toss out the notion that somehow it's an inspiring story,
40:46what Ray Lewis did this past year, you wonder how shameless people can be.
40:50Whatever difficulties he surmounted by his football performance,
40:56the difficulties entirely of his own making.
41:04Although Ray Lewis was named MVP of Super Bowl XXXV,
41:08he didn't get the chance to say those famous and profitable words.
41:12Instead, it was quarterback Trent Dilfer who said,
41:15I'm going to Disney World.
41:18When everybody turned against Ray Lewis and said,
41:19Ray Lewis was a murderer,
41:21and he didn't represent the NFL,
41:24and he'll run him all down.
41:25He'll all be...
41:26I don't want it.
41:28There's no weave box with Ray Lewis' face on it.
41:31The perception of Ray has probably been forever changed
41:33by what happened in Atlanta.
41:36That's unfortunate.
41:37I don't know that he'll ever be able to convince people
41:40or show people everywhere what he's really about.
41:45Since his murder trial in Atlanta in 2000,
41:48Lewis has become close with NFL veterans Rod Woodson and Shannon Sharp.
41:54He's gravitated to them,
41:56not as the best player on that football team,
41:58but as a little brother.
41:59Give me guidance.
42:00We try to tell him that,
42:02you know, you have to be real careful about who you choose to spread.
42:05Put your shield up.
42:06And you make them prove to you that you can trust him.
42:09You don't give anybody,
42:11nobody the benefit of the doubt.
42:12He's gone through a process of introspection with himself.
42:15He's gone through and looked at the good, the bad, and the ugly.
42:18In our conversations,
42:20it's been, you know,
42:21Mr. Wright, I'm sorry about what has happened,
42:22but I've got to move on with my life.
42:24I've got to make sure I don't go down that road again.
42:26I think struggling with who Ray Lewis is.
42:29Here's a guy whose mom is a Christian,
42:31very strong, religious background.
42:33I think Ray was brought up that way.
42:35But yet at the same time,
42:38here's a guy who has a lot of money,
42:40has a lot of fame early,
42:41and he's struggling with the identity.
42:44Ray Lewis is misunderstood.
42:46I, for one, I understand him completely.
42:48He's a guy who was at the scene of a murder
42:51and that has not yet been solved
42:53and didn't want to help solve it
42:54and wants us to forget about it and go away
42:55and just let him play football.
42:56Exactly who he is.
42:57At some point,
42:59the majority of the people will forget about the guy
43:02in the orange suit
43:03and think about the guy
43:04that was lying taking Barbara down in the Super Bowl.
43:07Until that murder is solved,
43:08people are going to see Ray Lewis running out there
43:11and for every tackle he makes,
43:13they're going to be thinking,
43:15this guy had something to do with the murder.
43:18We don't know what,
43:19and we'll never know what.
43:20Did Ray Lewis listen?
43:22I hope so.
43:24I truly do.
43:26Did he learn the lesson that
43:27some people in America want him to?
43:30Probably not.
43:30Should Ray Lewis even dream of changing his image
43:35in the media or anywhere else?
43:38The only thing that we really require
43:41is to crack through those blubbery slogs
43:44on the offensive line
43:46and kick the hell out of the quarterback.
43:48If he keeps doing that,
43:50then we'll keep paying him
43:51whether he says he's sorry
43:54whether he says go down.
43:58Whoa.
44:00He did that for six years.
44:02Watching Ray Lewis in the football field
44:04for the first time,
44:05his high school coach gapes
44:07at the power and grace of the 15-year-old
44:09who ran down everything.
44:11Lewis has been on the attack ever since,
44:14running towards ball carriers and quarterbacks,
44:16running towards fame and wealth.
44:19But he may never be able to outrun
44:21the memory of that double homicide
44:23after Super Bowl XXXIV.
44:26For SportsCentury, I'm Chris Fowler.
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