If you are head coach and if you do read the police report ..... are you supposed to override the law and kick people off the team that may be innocent?
Override the law? The law and team rules are not at all one and the same. I sometimes see people muddle up distinctions where clear distinctions exist.
Let me give one example. Sometimes people are fired from a private job for something they say or somehow express. Now, the first thing I often hear after this is that they had their right to free speech violated. Nope, doesn't work like that, doesn't work like that around here either. Free speech only applies (and only should apply) to the government placing restrictions on your speech. If you say something I disagree with, as an employer I should have a right to severe our relationship. So, there's no actual crossover there, it's just an imagined one.
In this case I would say the same thing. If a coach punishes a player, we're not talking about throwing him in jail, we're not talking about trying to simulate the justice system in action, that's not at all what is going on. However, are we really to try to assert that only things that are prosecuted crimes are punishable outside of the justice system?
I had a neighbor that beat his wife, repeatedly. She would never press charges so the justice system never did anything. Does that mean everyone else around him has to regard him as an innocent man guilty of nothing? I don't agree with that at all. Take for example the FSU running back, he beat his girlfriend, she put pictures on social media, no charges were pressed and Jimbo the scumbag doesn't even sit him a single game! Well, I guess he didn't "override" the law but he darn sure should have. He had all the evidence he needed to act upon. She posted what happened, she posted pictures, everyone knows what happened, the guy should have been suspended, end of story. How about Taylor and Alabama? The charges were dropped, but I don't see anyone asking for him to be back on the team do you? And he shouldn't be back.
The justice system has failings, and particularly in situations involving rape or domestic abuse (the Winston case comes to mind, no question he should have been suspended, the girl had bruises on her arms, claimed abuse at his hands and had his DNA on her), often does nothing. I have witnessed this firsthand. I also understand sometimes why they don't, however simply because the victim won't cooperate does not at all mean we as a society should pretend something didn't happen.
Really though part of this is the distinction between the law, in proving someone did harm, and what I don't think the law should do, which is legislate morality. The law has no place telling us when to go to bed, as far as I'm concerned they have no place telling us to stay away from drugs or prostitutes either. However, if I am the coach of a team? Do I have a right to uphold those stands. Absolutely! And that's really what most of this comes down to. A coach has the right, he has the moral imperative I would argue, to create a standard for his players. How he does that is one thing, but when someone alleged actual abuse, when there is any evidence of that, he absolutely has to take it seriously.