Outside of targeting if an official witnesses a particularly egregious personal foul is he at liberty to eject the player on his first offense; or must the player be guilty of two infractions?

I ask because I was watching a clip of a game from the 90s where a defender whose team was hopelessly behind late in the game, grabbed onto a runner's face mask with both hands, twisted him around and slammed him into the ground with a lot of force. But he wasn't ejected.