by Ray Lewis
These dudes, they were grabbing at me. Muscling me. Treating me like dirt. Two of them put a pair of handcuffs on me. Another one stood me up. Another one said, “You a big man now, huh?”
Mocking me.
Taunting me.
It felt to me like I was outside myself. Like this terrible business was happening to some other dude, and I could only watch. Didn’t matter how powerful I was on the football field—I was powerless against this right here. And so I let these men do what they had to do. I let myself be dragged from that house—my boys crying, my girl frantic, my mother on a plane waiting to take off for Hawaii, doors closed, no way for her to reach back out to find out what was going on.
Guess I ached for her most of all.
• • •
Those officers dragged me, cuffed, across that front lawn, and pushed me into a tiny gray Chevy Cavalier. Shoving me every which way. When I got into the car, I did a foolish thing—I said, “I cannot ride like this, back of this little car, my hands behind me, these handcuffs so tight.”
Why was this a foolish thing? Because it seemed to rub a number of these police officers the wrong way, set them off. Off of that, a bunch of them were out to teach me some kind of lesson, and here I don’t want to honor these few rogue cops by detailing their mistreatment of me, so I will just say this: in a civilized society, you don’t treat animals the way some of these officers treated me.
These kinds of cops, they have their tactics. They don’t hit you where it will show. You learn to brace yourself for hits, flex, absorb the blows. You learn who the bigger man is, this type of situation, and it got to where I told myself these blows were like taps from a mosquito. Told myself these men could not touch me.
After a while of this, another cop stepped in for me—said, “Y’all know this man didn’t do this.” He got in the backseat with me, took off the cuffs so I could have my hands in front of me. When I thanked him, he said, “Ray, the word over the radio is you had nothing to do with this fight.”
We drove for a while, stopped somewhere so they could switch me into another vehicle—like a paddy wagon. They fixed my cuffs to a hook in the ceiling, so I had to ride a half hour with my hands in the air, the cuffs already tight to begin with, digging into my wrists every time we turned. Dude at the wheel making tight turns, at speed, just to get me leaning this way and that, knowing he was snapping my wrists each time.
Finally, we pulled up to some kind of courthouse, photographers everywhere, folks yelling my name, telling me to look here.
Inside, waiting, somebody brought me something to drink. I’d been asking. They sat me at a table, hands cuffed behind my back. One dude put a can of Sprite on the table, opened it, then tipped it over so the soda started to run out the mouth—said, “Here, drink that.”
So I did—got down on my knees like a dog and slurped at the soda as it fell off the table.
I kept running my mouth. That first lawyer my agents found for me? He was nowhere, man, so there was nobody there to save me from myself. I was livid, fuming. Talking a good game to make up for the way they had me bound, humiliated—saying, “You take off the badge, I guarantee most of y’all are cowards.” Saying, “Y’all gonna have to deal with me someday.”
Like that.
They put me in an orange jumpsuit, moved me to another facility. Hands fixed tight to the roof of the car, again. Driver making those tight, fast turns, again.
Next day, the district attorney went on television and said he could prove without a shadow of a doubt that Ray Lewis stabbed and killed these two young men. The police did not have a shred of evidence against me. There was no motive, no timeline. They couldn’t even put me on the same street as the victims. All they had on me was that I had left this club and gotten into this limousine and that shots were fired. What was I doing, running through the streets of Atlanta with my full-length mink coat, doing these stabbings, then running back to my car without being seen?
The charges made no sense. Told myself, that district attorney, he would suffer for this. Told myself, Ray, you got praying folks in your corner. That was my mind-set at the time. I came at this thing from a place of rage, a place of revenge. But in the end I would be the one to suffer. These poor boys, they paid the ultimate price, how things went down for them that night. But me, I was made to pay for their deaths. In the court of public opinion, I was made to pay. In the detention facilities of the city of Atlanta, Georgia, I was made to pay.
I was crucified, man.
Those praying folks in my corner? They couldn’t help me. I could only help myself. I could only reach down and call on my own faith to see me through. These police officers, they had to know they had nothing on me. The district attorney, he had to know. Only way they could make me pay for these crimes was to provoke me while I was in custody. And so they provoked and provoked, again and again. They kept at me, man. It was all I could do to keep calm, hold my fire. Here I could only hold my tongue, take whatever they were dishing out. And they kept dishing it out. Every night I’d hear this loud clang, telling me one of the guards was unlocking my door, telling me another group of cruel, racist cops was coming for me. Three or four o’clock in the morning, the lock rattling on the door to my cell, I just had to deal with whatever garbage they sent my way. Every night it was the same thing. They came to rough me up, so they roughed me up. Time and time again, they roughed me up. They violated me in every way. But they could not break me.
• • •
Let me tell you, your faith can be tested in all kinds of ways. And that’s just what happened here. In all kinds of ways, I was tested. I didn’t need faith to tell me I was innocent, only that justice would be served. Only that my name would be redeemed. Only that whatever these men would do to me—whatever this system would do to me—I would rise above it.
That first night in jail, I cried so much my hands were full of tears. Sweet Jesus, it was like somebody poured water into them, and I could only take that water and grab at it, all pooled in the cup of my hands, and toss it into the air. I just threw those tears away—said to myself, “I ain’t looking back.”
I heard God’s voice. I did. He came to me from somewhere in the darkness of that holding cell—said, “Can you hear me now?”
And underneath this voice, in the middle of that darkness, there was a message—came in clear and loud and true.
The message: whatever muck and mire I had to slog through in that jail cell in Atlanta, it would strengthen me.
Whatever shadows there were now hanging over me and my family, it would strengthen me.
Whatever dirt these people in law enforcement were determined to do to my name, my standing, my pride, it would only strengthen me.
Can you hear me now?
Oh yes—yes, I can hear you! Yes!
I wanted to shout it out, but if I raised my voice they would come and beat me down. And so I raised my voice in silence. I sang to Him in silence. Wasn’t any other way to play it. For two and a half weeks, this was how it went. For two and a half weeks, I would drop to the floor of that jail cell and do my push-ups and sit-ups. For two and a half weeks, I would drop to my knees in prayer. All night long, until they would come for me. I would not be beaten down by this terrible weight. I would survive on nothing but orange slices and faith and sheer iron will.
Orange slices? Yep, that’s all I had to eat—except for but one time. They’d send around these dry bologna sandwiches on moldy bread, but that was just too nasty. That one time, it was a feast from Long John Silver’s. It was brought to me as a kindness by a childhood friend of my cousin Tony who just happened to be working in detention. He’d heard I was there, came to see me one night, asked how I was doing.
He said, “You hungry?”
I said, “I’m starving, but I won’t break.”
He said, “Let me bring you something. There’s a Long John Silver’s, not too far. What you want?”
So I told him: two orders of fish and chips, some hush puppi
es. That’s all. Only problem was I had to eat it all in sixty seconds, so the kindness wouldn’t be found out, and I scarfed down that mess of food in no time flat. Good Lord, I went through it all so fast I don’t even remember it.
The way I was treated in custody, it was a low-down shame. This day and age, you would think there’d be some checks and balances in place to keep any kind of racist, abusive, arbitrary cruelty from raining down on folks they’ve got in custody. Innocent or guilty, it shouldn’t matter. But then you look at the headlines, past fifteen years, you see this type of thing still going on. New York. Miami. St. Louis. Baltimore. This black mark won’t go away, but there’s no call to treat people like dogs—hell, I was treated worse than any dog. Some of the things these police officers did to me, these corrections officers did to me, I won’t ever speak of them again. Not from my lips. I will not reduce myself to revisit this ugliness. I’ll just say it was demonic, the way I was treated. It was pure evil.
The Baltimore Ravens, they stood by me. They knew me. The entire organization, from Art Modell all the way to the clubhouse attendants, the folks in the ticket office knew it wasn’t in me to fight, unless it was on the football field. I was a warrior, but only on the field of battle, and so they lined up behind me, testified on my behalf, supported me in what ways they could.
For all the negative forces lining up against me, there were positive forces all around—but it wasn’t so easy to see them from the darkness of that cell. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t see outside. For two and a half weeks, I had no idea if it was day or night. My whole world was darkness. Once, I stood up on a small table they had in my cell, craned my neck to an up-high window, desperate to see the moon. I said, Lord, if you let me out of here I will cherish every sunrise, every sunset. My children, I’ve burdened them with the same promise. Whenever we’re together, we stop what we’re doing to watch the sun go down.
I’ll say, “What’s that?”
And whoever I’m with—Junior, Diaymon, Rayshad, Rahsaan, Ralin, Rayvyn, Kaitlin—they’ll come back with the same answer. They’ll say, “That’s Heaven.”
But those two and a half weeks, in the middle of that hell, I could only close my eyes and picture my Heaven. I could only take it on faith that it was out there, up there, waiting for me.
The Good Book says, “Touch not my anointed and do my prophets no harm.” I speak these words and tell myself my enemies will find their judgment, in this life or the next. Their day will come. These people, they know what they done. I know what they done. And that is enough.
And then, after everything, after running me through the mud and vandalizing me every which way, the district attorney comes out and says he’s dropping the charges. After all that? It was an outrage. But there it was. And in place of those two murder charges, there was a new charge: obstruction of justice. And to this, I had to plead guilty—that was the deal.
Time served—that was the deal.
Thirty-three percent of the court costs—that was the deal.
Just for everything to go away. But, of course, nothing went away. Those poor young men, they were still gone. Their families, they were still grieving. Nobody’s been brought to justice, and they’re still gone and grieving. The stain on my name, it’s still there. The stain on my heart—always.
There was a civil suit, too. I answered that the way God laid it on my heart. I settled that matter, and how I settled it was how I was asked. I could not bring those young men back. I had no hand in their deaths, I could not ease the suffering of those families. But I had so many blessings in my life, I told myself I could use some of those blessings for these good people. They were hurting. I was hurting. It was not an admission of guilt—it was an expression of love, of sympathy. I gave because I had it to give. I knew that money would never bring back what the families wanted most. But they asked for it and so I gave. But that was just money—it didn’t matter. It only mattered that I was down and now I’m out. I was despairing and now I’m free.
My mama, she had some scripture of her own to share with me when I was in custody, when it was looking for a time like I might never find my way out of this mess. She said, “Put your trust in no man, Baby Ray,” she said. “Put your trust in God.”
So I did, and as I did I came to see that my greatest challenge was to be a light in this darkness. And I told my mother how it would be—I said, “I’m gonna do something the world has never seen. I’m gonna flip it. Everybody who hurt me, I’m gonna walk away. I ain’t gonna argue. I ain’t gonna fight. I ain’t gonna curse.”
And I haven’t. I stopped cursing at the age of twenty-four, right there in that jail cell. Told myself I was done with it. I changed my walk, right there in that jail cell. My walk became a walk of love.
I was done walking in that darkness. I was tired of it. So I stepped outside and walked in the light.
TEN
Resurrection
Before I could move past those low moments in Atlanta I had to go through the trial put on by a district attorney who had me in his sights, for whatever reason. Maybe he had it in his head that the way to light up his name was to blacken mine. It started in May, almost four full months from the night of those stabbings. I was holed up in a hotel room close to the Fulton County courthouse in Atlanta. I was alone, a lot of the time. The trial was a wearying thing, emotionally draining. I felt for the families of these two victims, Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar. I truly did. I prayed for them. But underneath all that feeling and praying I was tore up, broken. I’d been beaten down by this mess—literally, and every which way besides. And now I was desperate to win back my good name.
I thought back to the man who gave it to me and my promise to him.
I will make it great.
I thought back to the sweet, noble woman who raised me, and my promise to her to walk every day on His path, in His light—to make my family proud, to be a light unto others. All of that.
I had some work to do to keep good on my word, but first I had to get past this trial, and here I mean a trial in every sense of the word. Because it was a trial, man. It was a test—not necessarily a test of my faith, because that was unbreakable, unshakable, but a test of my character, my strength as a man to endure whatever hatred and nonsense came my way on the back of these charges. And then, on top of all that, I had to find a way to get back to how things were.
I was helped in this by two angels who appeared before me in the strangest, most wonderful way. I walked into a local Houston’s restaurant one day after court, just to get something to eat. I sat down at a table in the corner by myself, across from another table with about five or six women, out for a good time. They were laughing, talking, enjoying each other—and, tell you the truth, I didn’t mind looking on, wishing I could find a way to pass the time like that. Really, I couldn’t remember a time when I was at ease, joyous, carefree, without the weight of this trial pressing down on me, so I was soaking in their gentle energy.
One of the women at the table kept looking at me, smiling at me. Finally, she came over—said, “Why are you sitting over here all by yourself?” Just as nice as could be.
I didn’t really have an answer, so I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Been a long day. Just getting something to eat.” It was something to say. That’s all. I had no reason to think she knew who I was, what I was going through—and, even if she did, I had no reason to think she was with me on this.
She said, “Well, there’s too many people praying for you. It won’t do for you to be sitting all by yourself.”
Then she took my hand and pulled me over to her table—and next thing I knew I’d met her sister, her aunt, her friends. They made me feel welcome. They let me laugh with them, unwind with them. And out of this one small kindness, a great friendship was born. These two sisters, Mona and Lisa, they saved my life—and now, all these years later, they’re still in my life. I tell people I’ve got two sets of twin sisters—my biological sisters, Laquesha and Lakeisha,
and my Atlanta sisters, Mona and Lisa. From this one chance meeting at Houston’s, they started picking me up each day after court, bringing me back for home-cooked meals. They’d sit in court during the trial—just so I could see a couple more friendly faces and know that folks were pulling for me, praying for me. They’d review the trial with me, as it was unfolding. One sister was a doctor, the other a lawyer, so they knew a thing or two about human nature, helped me to see the case in a fresh way, with each new development.
With them, through them, I knew where I stood.
You find people like that in this world, you come away thinking there’s a way out of this darkness—and it set me up to where I started to feel at home in Atlanta. This surprised me, got to say. All along, I couldn’t get out of there quick enough. As soon as bail was set, I was gone—back to my house in Baltimore. All that ugliness been coming my way since the Super Bowl, all that tension and hatred and brutality, I’d come to connect it to the city itself. I wanted no part of Atlanta—none. I had to get out of town and wash all that ugliness off of me. But then these good women came along and made a place for me in their homes, in their hearts, and I started to soften. I did. And as soon as that trial ended, as soon as I copped to that obstruction charge, I decided to stick around in Atlanta for the rest of that off-season.
Hard to believe, but there I was, in the belly of the beast—because I could not let a few dark souls poison that whole city for me. Because I could not lash out at every individual who did me dirt. I could only find strength in kind souls like Mona and Lisa, who helped me to see that there was goodness all around.
It was another great kindness that kept me in Atlanta—and this one came from my friend Shannon Sharpe, the Hall of Fame tight end who’d just signed with the Ravens as a free agent. Me and Shannon, we’d known each other from sitting around the bar at the Pro Bowl, from playing each other, had a bunch of friends in common. I was excited to hear he was joining our team, because we needed another threat on offense—and, frankly, I needed another good man in my corner. (Can’t ever have too many of those.) Shannon was one on a long list of guys all around the league who’d reached out to me following my arrest. Oh, I heard from almost all of my teammates, almost all of my Miami teammates, almost all of my coaches, a lot of the guys I’d played against. Shannon, though, we made a connection. He lived in Atlanta, so he knew full well what was going on; he knew how folks could be down there, so we got to talking, and out of those talks a great friendship came to be.
