Tiger Woods Wife Was Accused of Domestic Violence by Paramedics

On the night of his fateful SUV crash in November, Tiger Woods' wife gave two bottles of pain medication to officers, stating that he'd taken the meds earlier in the day. According to investigative records released to the Orlando Sentinel, his wife was also denied the opportunity to ride with Woods in the ambulance to the hospital. The reason she was not allowed to ride with Woods was because they were stating that this was a case of domestic violence.

The details were released after a December 16 public records request by the Orlando Sentinel. The crash took place on November 27 at roughly 2:30 a.m. In the crash, Woods bounced off the curb, ran through some bushes and hit a fire hydrant. He then crashed in to a tree in his neighbor's yard.

After the accident, Woods was ticketed for careless driving and given a $164 dollar fine. The afternoon after the crash, the highway patrol tried to obtain medical records from the hospital. They were attempting to determine if Woods was drinking or under the influence of drugs. The emergency room nurse stated that the records department was not open and that the police would have to return on the following Monday.

"The director of medical records at first stated their computer system was not working, then she stated that they would not provide that information without a warrant on D-1 [Tiger Woods], regarding whether or not medical blood had been drawn," wrote the Highway Patrol's Thomas DeWitt.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but something isn't right about any of this. Not that Tiger Woods' personal life should be the topic of our conversation, but as an African-American male, I find it quite interesting that our country has spent most of its time critiquing Woods' sexual choices instead of discussing the very realistic possibility that his wife might have tried to kill him with a golf club. Flip the situation around for a second and imagine if Elin were the one who'd been in a similar crash, after cheating on Tiger. No matter what Elin Nordegren might have done to her husband, if he'd been suspected of chasing her out of the house and beating her with a golf club, her sexuality would have been the last topic of conversation. Instead, she would still be the victim.

Tiger Woods is not O.J. Simpson. If anything, Elin might make a better comparison to O.J., who was also accused of hurting his spouse, after finding out about her sexual promiscuity. If the paramedics' original suspicions of domestic violence are true, then we've been analyzing the Tiger Woods scandal in the wrong way. It is also interesting that one point of perceived nobility of Woods is that he has defended his wife at all costs. But what we sometimes forget is that domestic violence victims defend their attackers all the time. This does not imply that we know for sure that Tiger was a victim of domestic violence, but there is a great deal of information that appears to have been deliberately kept from the public.

There are a lot of teachable moments from the Tiger Woods saga, but we are going to miss most of them. That makes me a tad bit sad. But anyone cheering for Elin Nordegren for possibly trying to kill her husband with a golf club needs to think carefully about the behavior they are advocating.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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