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Thread: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

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    Maple SERP savafan's Avatar
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    The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/421799.html

    Samiha Khanna and Anne Blythe, Staff Writers
    The woman who says she was raped last week by three members of the Duke University lacrosse team thought she would be dancing for five men at a bachelor party, she said Friday. But when she arrived that night, she found herself surrounded by more than 40.

    Just moments after she and another exotic dancer started to perform, she said, men in the house started barking racial slurs. The two women, both black, stopped dancing.

    "We started to cry," she said. "We were so scared."

    Forty-six members of the men's lacrosse team submitted DNA samples Thursday in the unusual case. As of late Friday, there had been no arrests. Duke officials briefed university staff Friday on the allegations, and authorities vowed to crack the team's wall of solidarity.

    "We're asking someone from the lacrosse team to step forward," Durham police Cpl. David Addison said. "We will be relentless in finding out who committed this crime."

    He emphasized the seriousness of the accusations -- first-degree rape, kidnapping, assault by strangulation and robbery.

    Details of the accusations were made public this week in a warrant authorizing a search of the three-bedroom rental house where the attack is alleged to have taken place.

    The accuser spoke Friday, struggling not to cry as she recounted the events of the early hours of March 14 at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., next to Duke's East Campus.

    It is The News & Observer's policy not to identify the victims of sex crimes.

    The accuser had worked for an escort company for two months, doing one-on-one dates about three times a week.

    "It wasn't the greatest job," she said, her voice trailing off. But with two children, and a full class load at N.C. Central University, it paid well and fit her schedule.

    This was the first time she had been hired to dance provocatively for a group, she said. There was no security to protect her, and as the men became aggressive, the two women started to leave. After some of the men apologized for the behavior, the women went back inside, according to police. That's when the woman was pulled into a bathroom and raped and sodomized, police said.

    She hesitated to tell police what happened, she said Friday. She realized she had to, for her young daughter and her father.

    A hurt that would last

    "My father came to see me in the hospital," she said. "I knew if I didn't report it that he would have that hurt forever, knowing that someone hurt his baby and got away with it."

    Jason Bissey, who was on his porch next door during the party, saw the victim that night. He said Friday that he wishes he had called police at the first sign something was wrong.

    He saw at least 30 men go into the white three-bedroom house, which Duke officials say is rented by three lacrosse team captains.

    Bissey saw two women arrive and, after they were in the house 20 minutes, come out. As they got into a car, men shouted, Bissey said.

    "Some of them were saying things like, 'I want my money back,' " Bissey said.

    He recalled the racially charged statements at least one man was yelling at the victim.

    "When I was outside, one guy yelled at her, '... Thank your grandpa for my cotton shirt,' " Bissey said.

    After a few minutes, everything seemed to calm down, he said. One of the women headed back into the house, saying she forgot her shoes.

    Days later, Bissey learned one of the young women reported being raped.

    "If I had called in the beginning, maybe the cops would have gotten there before this happened," he said.

    Bissey and other neighbors are accustomed to hearing loud parties at the house. It's one of many rental houses near the Duke campus where police stay busy, breaking up rowdy parties and rounding up minors suspected of underage drinking.

    Last fall, residents were worried about more than drunken antics and loud music. Many complained that students disregarded their neighbors and police, and were disrespectful when confronted.

    Police have been called to the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. four times since September, according to police records. The house is one of 15 properties the university bought in February to address neighborhood complaints. The university plans to sell the dwellings to quieter homeowners who agree not to rent them out.

    After hearing about the alleged rape, residents in neighborhoods around Duke sent e-mail to one another and police, criticizing landlords for tolerating an "Animal House" atmosphere.

    Residents also questioned why police waited two days to search the house after the rape was reported.

    Addison, the police spokesman, said that between receiving the call and searching the house, police were interviewing the victim, residents of the house and other witnesses. He also explained that one team member was excluded from the DNA testing because he is black and therefore doesn't match the description of the suspects.

    The tests are scheduled to be sent to the State Bureau of Investigation in Raleigh for testing, and Durham authorities said they are trying to have the process expedited.

    All that Duke officials can do, they say, is wait for the investigation to be completed.

    Art Chase, Duke sports information director, said lacrosse coach Mike Pressler and athletics department administrators had spoken with team captains about the incident. The department was not conducting an investigation of its own, Chase said.

    "I think they'll let the judicial system run its course," he said.

    Chase said he was not sure of the occasion for the party. Players did not return phone calls, and their parents remained mum, as did Pressler. He and the team were preparing Friday for today's home game against Georgetown University.

    Paul Haagen, chairman of Duke's Academic Council, was in a faculty meeting about the incident.

    'This is sad'

    "There was a sense of, 'This is sad, and it's terrible,' " Haagen said. "Beyond that, people don't know what's going on."

    Haagen, a law professor who specializes in sports law, said studies show that violence against women is more prevalent among male athletes than among male students in general -- and higher still among such "helmet sports" as football, hockey and lacrosse.

    "These are sports of violence," he said. "This is clearly a concern."
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    Designated Threadkiller LincolnparkRed's Avatar
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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    Quote Originally Posted by savafan
    http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/421799.html

    Forty-six members of the men's lacrosse team submitted DNA samples Thursday in the unusual case. As of late Friday, there had been no arrests. Duke officials briefed university staff Friday on the allegations, and authorities vowed to crack the team's wall of solidarity.
    Pretty dumb move IMO on their part. I am suprised that someone hasn't ratted out these guys yet. I would think some of these guys would be trying to attend various grad schools and to have your name associated with this could hurt your chances to go to Med/Law school.

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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    Quote Originally Posted by LincolnparkRed
    Pretty dumb move IMO on their part. I am suprised that someone hasn't ratted out these guys yet. I would think some of these guys would be trying to attend various grad schools and to have your name associated with this could hurt your chances to go to Med/Law school.
    If everyone on the team is refusing to talk to authorities about what allegedly occurred, none of them have the ethics which should be required to attend undergraduate school, let alone Med/Law school.
    The Duke lacrosse team should be disbanded immediately. Any member of the team who is determined to have either committed an alleged assault or rape, and any member of the team covering the crimes up, should be expelled. Any member of the team convicted of the crime should serve prison time.
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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    I'd threaten them all with accomplice charges if they don't speak, that will break at least once of them.

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    Rally Onion! Chip R's Avatar
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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    I would guess the cops have cracked tougher criminals than 46 lacrosse players. Staart charging them all with rape or conspiracy and the wall will start crumbling.
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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    Quote Originally Posted by Joseph
    I'd threaten them all with accomplice charges if they don't speak, that will break at least once of them.
    Not sure if that is allowed, Joseph. You have as much right to speak as you have not to speak. Makes me think of Mark Fehrman during the O.J. trial or Mark McGwire during the Congressional hearing on steroids. Might not seem right or fair, but it is ever person's right in this country.

    Of course threatening someone with something that is not true might be a standard police procedure. Ignorance of the law does not seem to be a defense if you are read your rights.

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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    The only thing that will break the stalemate are the DNA results

  9. #8
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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    Club Med sucks
    Authority sucks
    I hate golf
    I wanna play lacrosse

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    Maple SERP savafan's Avatar
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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    Fishy?


    http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-719002.html

    By Dan E. Way and John Stevenson : The Herald-Sun
    dway@heraldsun.com
    Mar 30, 2006 : 11:21 pm ET

    DURHAM -- Two Durham police officers were investigating a reported disturbance at a Duke lacrosse party just 16 minutes before the alleged victim of a gang-rape there showed up at a grocery store more than 2 miles away to call for help.

    But police found nothing at the scene, a police spokeswoman said.

    Meanwhile, the district attorney began downplaying a link between the results of DNA tests that are expected as early as next week and any possible charges. He also said the DNA test results might not be made public when they return from the state forensics lab.

    The lacrosse players and their attorneys have said the test results would prove the rape allegations are false. Police, applying for a court order compelling the DNA samples from 46 players, said the tests would "show conclusive evidence as to who the suspect(s) are in the alleged violent attack upon this victim."

    Police arrived at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. just two minutes after a woman called 911 to report she and her black friend had been verbally accosted by men outside the house yelling a racial slur early on March 14, according to computer dispatch records.

    "Officers responded to the call at 610 N. Buchanan within a minute of the dispatch. The complainant was not on the scene and no one seemed to be at the house, according to the officers, so they cleared the scene after checking the area for several minutes," said police spokeswoman Kammie Michael.

    The dispatch records show officers were on the scene for more than 11 minutes.

    "Where are all these white guys raising hell?" asked an incredulous James D. "Butch" Williams, who represents a lacrosse captain who lived at the house and voluntarily submitted to a DNA test shortly after one of two exotic dancers hired to entertain at the party said she was raped, sodomized and beaten by three white men there. "When the people start digging the least little bit, they're gong to find out things don't make sense."

    Williams attended a news conference in Raleigh on Thursday with three other attorneys representing the 46 lacrosse players who gave DNA samples to investigators. None of the players has been charged.

    "We believe that the DNA will show that it is not true. We believe that a full and complete and fair investigation will show that it is not true," said attorney Joe Cheshire of Raleigh.

    Cheshire said Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong and police have created a mob mentality that has tainted the men "before the evidence has all come out in a way that they will never recover." Vigils and protests, newspaper letters to the editor and local blogs all have been harshly critical of the players, whose season has been suspended.

    But Williams questioned the strength of the evidence. He implied Thursday that the 911 calls might have been a scam and that the entire incident was staged.

    In her call reporting the racial slur, the unidentified woman offered different versions of the incident. She variously said she had driven by the house, had walked by the house and was sitting in front of the house at the time she was talking to the 911 dispatcher. She initially said one male near the Duke wall hurled the racial epithet, and later said a group of people came out of 610 N. Buchanan yelling at her and her friend. The wall and the house are on opposite sides of a dimly lit street.

    "There are a number of discrepancies that point toward a contrived situation -- maybe," said Williams.

    The attorney said he didn't know why anyone might perpetrate such a potential hoax.

    "I can't speak to speculation," he added. "But once you tell one lie, you've got to tell another and another and another. You're caught up in a web of lies."

    According to official police logs obtained by The Herald-Sun, the first 911 call was received at 12:53. a.m. on March 14, and the first officer arrived at 610 N. Buchanan at 12:55 a.m. A second unit responded, and both departed by 1:06 a.m.

    The second 911 call, from the Kroger store on Hillsborough Road, initially was dispatched as an intoxicated person but later was changed to a rape case allegedly involving those at the lacrosse party. The call was placed at 1:22 a.m., 27 minutes after the police arrived to investigate the first 911 call and 16 minutes after they left the scene. The Kroger store is 2.3 miles from 610 N. Buchanan.

    The second caller later told police that she had found the victim walking on North Buchanan and then drove her to the store to get help.

    Williams, who has a private investigator working on the case, noted that the Police Department is closer -- nine-tenths of a mile away -- than the Kroger store and wondered why the victim would have been driven to a grocery store farther away.

    Michael, the police spokeswoman, was quoted in a published report saying the woman who drove to the Kroger store was the second exotic dancer hired by the lacrosse players. Earlier Michael told The Herald-Sun the driver was not the second dancer.

    Nifong had no comment Thursday on defense attorneys' claims of inconsistencies in the first 911 call, nor on the proximity of times between the first and second 911 calls and the police response.

    "I'm not going to talk about that right now," said Nifong. "I don't see it as an issue that would affect the way I prosecute this case. Right now, I'm just trying to get into a position where we can charge somebody or conclude that no one will be charged."

    Nifong said he had spoken with the State Bureau of Investigation on Thursday and was assured that DNA test results from the case still might be available next week, as originally predicted.

    "In this instance, we wouldn't have as strong a case without DNA, but it wouldn't necessarily be a no-case situation either," he said.

    Even if there is no DNA match with any of the lacrosse players, it still is "absolutely possible" that charges might be lodged, according to Nifong.

    "What did we use before we had DNA?" he asked. "We relied basically on identification of defendants by victims."

    However, Nifong declined to say whether the alleged rape victim was able to identify any of the lacrosse players by sight.

    The district attorney said it was unlikely he would make DNA test results immediately available to the public.

    And if charges arise in the case, it isn't yet known if they will originate through grand jury indictments or through normal arrest warrants, according to Nifong.

    He said that, in addition to any possible rape charges, some lacrosse players at the party -- but not all of them -- might be accused of acting in concert with the rapists or aiding and abetting them.
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    Harry Chiti Fan registerthis's Avatar
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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    Something's a bit off with this story, I think.
    We'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    UPDATED: Statement on Release of Sealed Warrant and Cancellation of Men's Lacrosse Season from Duke University President Richard H. Brodhead

    http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2006/04/coachresigns.html

    Durham, N.C. -- The court released today a previously sealed warrant, whose contents are sickening and repulsive.

    I have canceled the men’s lacrosse season and all associated activities, effective immediately. Lacrosse Coach Mike Pressler has submitted his resignation to Athletics Director Joe Alleva, effective immediately.

    Typically, we are prohibited under federal privacy regulations from releasing information regarding individual student disciplinary matters. In this case, the student named in the warrant has signed a release and given us permission to say that he has received an interim suspension. As a result of the interim suspension, the student is no longer on campus.

    I once again urge anyone with information pertinent to the events of March 13 to cooperate with the authorities.


    -------------------------------------------

    http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0405061duke5.html
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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    Did anyone watch the 60 Minutes segment on this last night?

    It was incredibly damning and indicative of prosecutorial misconduct. Apparently, the prosecutor violated basic tenants of criminal procedure by informing the victim that only pictures of Duke lacrosse players were featured in the photo lineup. Normally, the standard protocol is to put a number of people in photo lineups which have nothing to do with the incident, to prevent victim "guessing."

    Additionally, there is ATM video evidence that one of the accused players was using an ATM machine at the time the rape allegedly occurred. Even more damning is the fact that the other dancer's testimony contradicts much of what the victim has been saying. Also, the fact that the indictments were issued in the middle of the prosecutor's reelection campaign is even more troublesome.

    I'm aware that spin accompanies every news segment on these matters. However, the producers noted that they had undertaken a review of every single document in the case file, and that the primary evidence on which they indicted the three players was the photo lineup. If so, charges should have never been brought and the players certainly should not have not been indicted.

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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    Quote Originally Posted by letsgojunior View Post
    Did anyone watch the 60 Minutes segment on this last night?

    It was incredibly damning and indicative of prosecutorial misconduct. Apparently, the prosecutor violated basic tenants of criminal procedure by informing the victim that only pictures of Duke lacrosse players were featured in the photo lineup. Normally, the standard protocol is to put a number of people in photo lineups which have nothing to do with the incident, to prevent victim "guessing."

    Additionally, there is ATM video evidence that one of the accused players was using an ATM machine at the time the rape allegedly occurred. Even more damning is the fact that the other dancer's testimony contradicts much of what the victim has been saying. Also, the fact that the indictments were issued in the middle of the prosecutor's reelection campaign is even more troublesome.

    I'm aware that spin accompanies every news segment on these matters. However, the producers noted that they had undertaken a review of every single document in the case file, and that the primary evidence on which they indicted the three players was the photo lineup. If so, charges should have never been brought and the players certainly should not have not been indicted.
    I hope those Duke athletes sue the pants off the prosecutor, the county, the police department, and whoever else they have a case against.

    Furthermore, that prosecutor should face harsh sanctions and/or criminal charges and hopefully be disbarred.

    A clear political stunt and I hope those responsible pay for it dearly.

  15. #14
    Maple SERP savafan's Avatar
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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    What about the coach who lost his job over this?
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    He has the Evil Eye! flyer85's Avatar
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    Re: The Duke Lacrosse team is in serious trouble

    Case of a prosecutor letting his mouth overload his butt to get some publicity. He convicted them in the press before he had any idea what kind of case he had(DNA evidence). Then when the evidence came back and it was obvious he had no case he was in too deep to back away quickly.

    I doubt this case ever goes to trial and some time next year the charges will dropped as this case fades away.


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