Bell: 49ers dump due process this time around

Due process, it seems, has its limits with the San Francisco 49ers.

Ray McDonald was abruptly released Wednesday, shortly after the team learned their starting left tackle was being investigated in a sexual assault case.

San Jose police said in an email Wednesday that police received a call from a hospital at 10:43 a.m. Tuesday about a possible sexual assault victim. Officers contacted the adult female victim, who said she was "possibly sexually assaulted a day prior." Detectives from the San Jose Police Sexual Assaults and Investigation Unit later executed a search warrant on McDonald's home.

The last time McDonald was involved in some serious police business, less than four months ago when he was arrested on suspicion of domestic assault, the 49ers kept him on the active roster and fiercely defended their action as part of due process.

Not this time.

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It was more like: Him again?

The 30-year-old McDonald wasn't charged in the previous incident, in part because his pregnant fiancée did not want to cooperate with authorities.

Identified by San Jose police as a suspect in this sexual assault investigation, McDonald has not been arrested or charged.

So, what happened to 49ers' fondness for due process?

Trent Baalke, the 49ers general manager, said he learned of the police activity around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, then huddled in his office with coach Jim Harbaugh while CEO Jed York joined the meeting by conference call. Within a half-hour, the 49ers notified the NFL they were releasing McDonald.

Then McDonald and his agent were informed. This all happened in about 45 minutes.

Such swift action was not a function of the NFL's new, get-tough personal conduct policy. It was a 49ers decision.

"Ray's demonstrated a pattern of poor decision-making that has led to multiple distractions for this organization and this football team that really can no longer be tolerated," Baalke explained. "And that's the reason for the decision that we made."

Before hailing the 49ers as a champion for acting decisively in dealing with crisis – amid a climate of heightened sensitivity to domestic violence issues – take stock of what Baalke never said during his afternoon press conference.

He never said McDonald's release was a statement against domestic violence.

Sure, he implied that. And maybe there was a legal risk to saying that about a player who has not been arrested.

But it sure would not have hurt to state the franchise philosophy at a time like this.

Especially after the 49ers withstood all that heat for sticking by McDonald earlier this season. In the previous case, the 49ers contended they were waiting on the authorities to decide whether to press charges before deciding his status.

When the decision not to file charges was announced, it seemed the 49ers' caution was prescient.

Yet according to documents from the San Jose District Attorney's office, later obtained by The Mercury News, authorities detailed an account of that, despite the absence of charges, described McDonald's physical engagement with his fiancée.

Maybe the 49ers come off as hypocrites for not waiting for more facts to emerge in the new case before releasing him.

I'm guessing the 49ers, taking their chances, will withstand the heat. Just like last time.