Questions about Duke lacrosse 911 call

Today's Durham Herald Sun includes a report on apparent inconsistencies in a 911 call to police the night of the alleged Duke lacrosse rape:

A defense attorney is questioning the phone call from an anonymous woman to 911 dispatchers in which she claimed someone yelled racial epithets at her and her friend outside the house where the alleged gang rape by members of the Duke lacrosse team occurred.

The call was placed at 12:53 a.m. on March 14, 29 minutes before the alleged rape itself was reported. In it, the woman says a man yelled "nigger" at her and her friend.

The existence of the call was revealed by Durham police Tuesday afternoon. It prompted Duke President Richard Brodhead to issue a statement Wednesday calling the slur "disgusting."

"I am sorry the woman and her friend were subjected to such abuse," Brodhead said.

But Butch Williams, an attorney representing one of the lacrosse team members -- none of whom has been charged with a crime -- is questioning the validity of the woman's statements in the call.

He said inconsistencies are part of a pattern that lead him to believe "that a lot of these allegations that have been made never happened."

Initially, the woman described the event this way:

"I was driving down near Duke's campus and it's me and my black girlfriend and the guy, there's like a white guy by the Duke wall and he just hollered out nigger to me."

After the dispatcher asked the woman for her location, she described the incident a second time. In the second description, she was walking rather than driving, and more than one person had used the slur:

"It's right in front of 610 Buchanan [Blvd.] and they came -- I saw them all come out like a big frat house and me and my black girlfriend are walking by and they called us niggers."

Williams said another inconsistency lies in the three times the woman on the tape states the address of the house.

"I've been out there," he said, "And [the house number] doesn't show from the street."

A reporter from The Herald-Sun went to the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. on Wednesday and there were no numbers on the house. The faded imprint of the numbers is halfway down the front door of the house, a location obscured by the porch railings.

Williams said he believes that the woman on the first 911 call was more involved with the events of that night than she stated on the tape.

"She's part of the situation," Williams said.

How did she know the number, and why did her story change? Is this just normal eyewitness inconsistency, or a sign of something more serious?

Update 3/31 1:26 PM: A reader points out that the search warrant for the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. states that "[t]he numbers 610 are black and are on the front door of the residence." So was the warrant wrong, or were the numbers removed after the fact?

Comments

Just a proofreading note--9/11 refers to the date, September 11, which people now take as a reference to 9/11/01. The emergency call number is 911 or 9-1-1, if you want to be technical about it.

Not really germaine to discussion of the issues, but it is always good not to undermine your analysis with a silly editing mistake.

[Brendan Nyhan]

Oops, that's a bizarre typo. Fixed above - thanks.

Hmmm. The Smoking Gun police report says that the numbers were there. I wonder if they took the victim's word for that in the request for a search warrant, or if somebody removed the numbers before the reporter stopped by in order to deliberately confuse issues (or if the reporter didn't really check and someone lied to the reporter about the numbers).

[William Mays]

Re: the 911 call.

I see that Duke University's president is quoted in the press as saying he found the tape "disgusting," and that he is "sorry the woman and her friend were subjected to abuse."

My question is, who was on the tape?

Did the tape record the voices of those hurling epithets, or merely the voice of the accuser making a report?

I suspect that only the accuser's voice is on the 911 tape.

If that is so, then President Brodhead is being very unfair to the accused players,
by giving credence to unproved allegations.

Assuming any of the players are eventually charged, how will they get a fair trial if the University's president is already on record as saying, in effect, that they are guilty?

[John]

I'm local to Duke and there's SO MANY inconsistencies, but the media won't print them. The story is much sexier and people are getting on National shows with the first story.

The woman says in the Raleigh News and Observer on 3/25 that she reported the rape for her FATHER. She says her Father came to see her at the hospital - a direct quote.
Link: http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/421799.html

On 3/31, the FATHER is quoted by Knight-Ridder as saying he saw her the day after the incident and SHE NEVER SAID ANYTHING TO US.
Link:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/14236484.htm

NO ONE WILL TOUCH IT. I called the News and Observer and have written them e-mails and they say they're aware of it, but they won't report it in any way. They keep printing pictures of the Duke players and rehashing the dancers version of events, but they won't print anything when so much of the story really STINKS.

For instance, the News&Observer (and then everyone else) printed CHARGES that some players of the team have against them (most are open-container violations and maybe two
for urinating outside).. But they reported the Charges even when they were not convicted by the Judge (in many cases).

The woman has a CRIMINAL RECORD, but NO ONE will report Her convictions. The story we keep hearing at Duke is that the woman ARRIVED drunk or High. This is consistent with her CRIMINAL record. She has a DWI and her license has been suspended THREE times, and she's has an Eluding ARREST conviction.
Only one small, local TV station published this story on their web-site only:
Source:
http://www.wral.com/news/8370290/detail.html

It's really scary .. I've waited on hold and spoken to editors at Large Newspapers.. They won't print the other side. It's like
the Twilight Zone. I never would've believed it.

[Nice guy]

Rape shields were created in the 1970s to protect the alleged “victim” from having her reputation ruined by baseless assumptions, unfair judgments, public humiliation, and character assassinations, but any of this could describe what’s happening to every member of the lacrosse team.

Irresponsible “special interest groups” have held protests everyday holding the name and pictures of anyone on the lacrosse team, to having their pictures and hate slogans pasted all over school. The actions of these groups against these men are nothing short of harassment and unfair character assassination.

Media hungry District Attorney Mike Nifong stated he is positive a rape has occurred, but he isn’t sure if it’s by the members of the lacrosse team, yet he obtained an order to get DNA samples from only the members of the team, then he stated on a national news program that the lacrosse team has a “rowdy” reputation on campus – obviously playing up to sexist stereotyping of jocks to further play his case for the media. As Nifong continues to publicly massacre the characters out his case for public consumption, he claims that the team is “stonewalling the investigation” because they claim not to have any knowledge of what transpired, but is Nifong now believing the men to be telling the truth as he recently changed his tune stating that even if the DNA evidence clears these boys that he’ll have other evidence.

Opportunistic political groups have descended on Duke’s campus using unscrupulous methods to get media attention at the expense of innocent young men who happen to be on the lacrosse team. Young men who were too recently, only boys not yet ready to handle this ugly side of the world. In today’s climate, we need the rape shield laws extended to protect all the innocent, including those who just happen to get in the way of media hungry district attorneys and opportunistic political groups.

[Sue F.]

I would like to know if anyone knows the square footage and/or the layout of the Duke Frat House in question (alleged rape case).

Thank you.