Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon is through with the Oklahoma courts after he was caught on camera punching a female student, but he has yet to truly have his day with the court of public opinion. And that day is coming soon.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in favor of the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters, by way of a 6-3 decision, that the tape of the incident be submitted to the public record because it was shown in a previous court proceeding. This concludes a lengthy appeals process by the OAB, dating back to the original incident in 2014.
Though the video has been sealed from public consumption, a group of media members viewed the tape in September 2014. Here is how one described it:
The angle of the surveillance camera looks down from a corner. Its lens is directly on Molitor and Mixon at the moment of the physical altercation. You couldn’t ask for a better camera angle.
There’s no audio to go along with the video, so no one watching the video can be sure of what was said. We can only speculate that Molitor didn’t like something that was being said and summoned Mixon to her table to hash it out.
When Mixon looked like he was trying to leave after possibly saying something he shouldn’t have, Molitor, the victim, initiated the physical confrontation with a push into Mixon’s chest, which didn’t seem to move him much.
Mixon followed by lunging at her. Molitor jerked back and slapped Mixon on the chin and neck. She swung with force but didn’t connect flush or enough to make an impact on Mixon.
Immediately following the slap, Mixon leveled a punch violent enough to knock Molitor down so that her head hit the corner of a nearby table. The force of Mixon’s punch caught me off guard -- even when I knew it was coming.
After throwing the punch, Mixon fled from the camera’s view and did not reenter it. Molitor is left on the ground and stays down for much longer than a 10-count. She makes it back to her feet on her own but wobbles and has to be helped into a chair.
Blood streamed down her face as friends and Pickleman’s patrons brought her ice and paper towels to help stop the bleeding.
The Mixon incident played out simultaneously as the Ray Rice fiasco in the NFL; Rice’s suspension was upped from two games to an indefinite length after TMZ released video of him punching his then-fiance Janay Palmer and ultimately led to the end of his career. Mixon sat out the 2014 season and then re-joined the club in 2015, rushing 113 times for 753 yards and seven touchdowns and catching 28 balls for 356 yards and four touchdowns for the Big 12 champions.
