Duke lacrosse rape case in New York Times

This morning, a front page New York Times story took the Duke lacrosse rape allegations to the national level:

Duke University suspended the season of its nationally ranked men's lacrosse team Tuesday while the authorities investigated allegations that a woman from a nearby college who had agreed to dance at a private party attended by many team members had been sexually assaulted.

The incident on March 13, which occurred at an off-campus house owned by the university, has brought into sharp relief long-simmering tensions between the private university and the city. The woman is black, most of the team members are white and law-enforcement officials say they are investigating allegations that racial epithets were shouted at the woman.

Residents, students and faculty members have staged at least five protests in the last four days, including one Tuesday night outside the building where Duke's president, Richard H. Brodhead, was holding a news conference. They are upset with the silence of team members and the university's handling of the case.

Mr. Brodhead's announcement that the team's season was being suspended came five days after 46 of 47 members of the Blue Devils lacrosse team provided DNA samples to Durham police investigators. The team's roster includes 26 players from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut high schools. Mr. Brodhead said that he met with the team's captains Tuesday morning and that they apologized for the embarrassment they had caused themselves, their families, the athletic department and the university. They also denied the allegations made by the woman, who said she had been assaulted in a bathroom by three team members.

Here's today's report on Brodhead's decision from the student newspaper here. But, more importantly, today's Duke Chronicle also includes this explosive story, which includes new details on alleged physical evidence of rape and another case of lacrosse team members shouting racial epithets:

The Durham Police Department released tapes Tuesday of 911 calls recorded in the early hours of March 14 during and after a party at which members of the men's lacrosse team allegedly gang-raped, sodomized and strangled an exotic dancer.

The captains of the team "unequivocally" denied the sexual assault and rape allegations in a statement-the group's first public statement about the situation.

President Richard Brodhead said at a press conference Tuesday evening that the captains had denied to administrators that sex "of any kind" occurred with the dancer, reportedly a 27-year-old black student at North Carolina Central University.

District Attorney Mike Nifong said Tuesday on MSNBC's The Abrams Report that the circumstances of the case exclude the possibility that there was no sexual activity.

"I am convinced that there was a rape," Nifong said, adding that nurses observed vaginal trauma upon examining the alleged victim.

Teammates who did not commit or observe the alleged assault are potentially liable for charges of aiding and abetting the crime because of teammate relationships, he added.

In the newly released 911 tapes, a female caller who was driving past 610 N. Buchanan Blvd.-a residence leased by three members of the lacrosse team and the scene of the party where the alleged rape occurred-reported that a white man yelled racial slurs at her from in front of the residence.

"He just hollered out n- to me, and I'm just so angry I didn't know who to call," she said to the 911 operator.

The Durham Herald Sun has also filed a report with new details:

Meanwhile, new details of the alleged rape have emerged from the court order used to obtain DNA samples from 46 lacrosse players last week.

According to the Police Department's application for the order, medical records gave credence to the victim's allegations.

The records "revealed the victim had signs, symptoms and injuries consistent with being raped and sexually assaulted vaginally and anally," according to the document.

A forensic sexual assault nurse conducted the evaluation, the document said, and stated that the victim's "injuries and her behavior were consistent with a traumatic experience."

Also, the city released a recording Tuesday of a call an unidentified woman made to 911 dispatchers the night of the alleged rape in which she claimed to have been walking outside the house where the lacrosse party was held. The woman reported that a man standing in front of the wall near 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. called her and a black friend "niggers" as they walked past the residence.

The woman told the dispatcher that she "isn't hurt or anything," but that she simply wanted to report the incident. The dispatcher gave no indication that she would send a police cruiser to the area.

The alleged rape victim is black and told police that the lacrosse players at the party, all of whom were white, also used racial slurs.

Police spokeswoman Kammie Michael did not answer questions about the time between the woman's call and the call reporting the alleged rape, which came from a security guard at the Kroger on Hillsborough Road.

Michael said the alleged rape victim was not the same woman who called about the racial slur. But Michael did not respond to a question asking whether the woman who called about the racial slur was the woman who accompanied the alleged rape victim to the party.

When the Kroger security guard called police, she told the dispatcher that the alleged victim was sitting in a car and was "intoxicated, drunk or something." The guard said the woman wouldn't get out of the car.

The guard told the dispatcher that the owner of the car was standing with her at the customer service station.

Michael did not answer a question asking whether the alleged rape victim was intoxicated.

But in an interview Tuesday night, the guard, Angel Altmon, said that once she went to the car and saw the woman, she no longer thought she was intoxicated. In particular, there was no odor of alcohol, Altmon said.

"Somebody must have slipped her something, because she wasn't drunk," Altmon said. "If she was drunk I would have smelled something."

Altmon said she didn't see any bruises on the woman, although it was dark. She said the woman was wearing just one high-heeled shoe and see-through lingerie.

Altmon also said the driver of the car told her she didn't go to the party with the alleged victim. The driver said she was driving near the party scene when she saw the alleged victim walking outside. "She said she saw a whole lot of Duke guys hollering at her" and using racial slurs, Altmon said. She said the driver said she stopped to pick up the woman and brought her to the Kroger to call police.

At the same time, however, people on campus are so upset that there's a danger of a lynch mob mentality, as this quote illustrates:

Nearly 200 people gathered outside campus administrator offices Monday to express anger and demand action in response to a rape investigation involving the men's lacrosse team.

The incident has sparked outrage on and off campus about sexual violence, classism and racism.

"I am outraged that there's a silence. ... I am outraged that legal rights are used to quiet this issue," said Meenakshi Chivukula, a junior from Medfield, Mass.

PS: Audio clips of the 9/11 calls are available in the online version of a Raleigh News & Observer article.

Update 3/29 12:33 PM: President Brodhead's statement on the team's suspension is here.

Comments

[Raleighite]

Wow. Some questions come to mind: When these guys called a service to hire the dancers, did they specifically request black women? If so, then considering their racist behavior, it seems obvious that they had a very specific intent BEFORE THE PARTY EVEN STARTED. Get my drift?
Then, if the victim was given some kind of drug while at the party, again, seems like we have a whole lot of premeditation going on here...not necessarily just a "mob mentality" thing.
And another one: Apparently there is one black player on the team. Wonder what HIS experience has been, as a member of this group?
And then also: Where the heck are the parents of these players? It's been two weeks and still not one of them has broken their silence. I would hope that these parents are putting the screws to these kids and doing anything they can to get the ones who weren't involved to turn in those who were.
When I was in college (ANOTHER Triangle University...not State)the LAX players were known as a rough group, but it was drunken brawling and public urination kind of rough...nothing like this. It boggles the mind.

[SomeCallMeTim]

My recollection is that Duke and Durham have troubled reputations on race issues, or at least when compared to Chapel Hill and UNC. (This is all third-hand, and I believe Duke gets tainted for being in Durham, rather than any specific actions or inactions on its part.) I wonder to what extent that largely unaddressed reputation is driving interest in this case.

[murphy]

"Outraged that legal rights are used to quiet this issue"? What a strange quote.

Worst-case scenario here: A rape occurred, but the hysteria (including the bizarre assertion that the media are somehow ignoring this) makes it impossible to do a proper investigation, and the innocent get punished more than the guilty.

[Raleighite]

Murphy, agree that is a strange quote, however...how are the innocent being punished more than the guilty? And, to characterize this as "a rape ocurred" is a whopper of an understatement. It is really unsettling to hear what sound like allowances and excuses for the behavior of these cretins.

[Sean]

I think what also will be troubling is the details of the players' actions outside of the crime. Acts of bigotry associated with a university are heavily damaging, and the reaction among players to the alleged crime—from indifference to an actual cover-up—are truly despicable.

[murphy]

Raleighite -- Fair question, and I should clarify that the worst-case scenario presented here is hypothetical, though entirely plausible.

I was pointing out that it's quite possible that the guilty (if a crime -- and you're right that "rape," as strong a word as it is, isn't sufficient -- occurred) will evade justice, while those who weren't part of it suffer from guilt by association.

I understand the notion that someone on that team should step forward. But that's putting an awful lot of pressure on a scared 19-year-old kid who may be guilty of nothing other than being the teammate of cretins and is being told by lawyers to keep his mouth shut. (The DA, I believe, has said that some team members weren't present.)

Maybe the pressure should be on the lawyers instead?

[ricky]

Have you ever read the children's tale The Emperor's New Clothes? Have you ever seen the play The Crucible? Do you beleive that a person is innocent until proven guilty? Have you ever heard of the word "hoax?" Do you beleive in lie detector tests being given to plaintiffs? Have you ever heard of the OJ trial and what the n-word did there? Have you ever considered that escort services supply prostitutes? Do you consider a 28 year old unwed mother of two naive? Have you ever heard of crack heads? Lynch mobs? Anarchy? Jealousy?
Could it be that two upset vengeful liars made up both stories-- the racial slurs and the rape?
Good. Rexamine the premise of this whole thing! Be open minded.

[Devin]

After the dust settles we all lose--a girl's life is forever changed as well as several young men as trial will ensure...and they all have to deal with the consequences of their decisions--whether right or wrong in our eyes--they are a product of a society that is more concerned about the way things look, how much money you have and lies... rather than the truth. But the truth is what can destroy and build-up, that is why politics doesn't deal to well within this realm of reality, nor do many of us want to hear or see the truth but envelope a false sense of security as we pass along in our actions to our children and then so on into the generations. These young men had a false sense of power through an act of rape and bigotry. And that young women found her security in belittling herself for money.
If money lost its value a lot of us would really have nothing to offer to one another.

[Florida]

Ok, Mr. These two strippers fabricated this story, oh and lets not forget the naive mother of two. Hmmm, ponder the thought for once that these players probably are 100 percent guilty of this crime. Women can not pretend to be victimized and bodies can not produce false wounds ( wounds in reference to the sexual assault signs at the hospital) This seems to be another case where athletes feel they will and can take full advantage and they feel they can get away with it.

[Forrest Smith]

IN RE: Vaginal 'trauma' or what someone in this thread called "wounds in reference to the sexual assault" can occur even in consensual sexual intercourse. A well-known and oft-cited study simply took magnified photographs of the vaginal and anal areas of married women BEFORE and immediately AFTER consensual marital sexual intercourse and concluded that in almost ten per cent of cases lacerations and suggilations (look it up) occurred that, under 'forensic' conditions would be 'consistent with sexual assault".
Just thought you might like to know.
A concerned physician.