I was reading this Salon Article about the situation at Duke University and found that it filled in a lot of the gaps left by cable news. I hope that we have some people who know or have lived in North Carolina or Durham, or maybe are Duke alumni, and can speak to what they know about the situation. The story points to this incident maybe being just one symptom of a larger problem in this communtiy. What I know about Duke comes from family that went to UNC-Chapel Hill & think they're all bunch of assholes. So a more objective voice might be needed.
First let's go over what's alleged to have happened...
Everyone who's seen stories on cable news has got the broad outline of the story. The Duke Lacrosse team hired strippers, alleged to have raped one of the dancers, and submitting to DNA tests to find the assailant.
The Smoking Gun has gotten a hold of a
search warrant application that fills in the details that get censored out on TV...
...On 3/14/06 at 1:22am, Durham City Police Officers were called to the Kroger on Hillsborough Road. The victim, a 27 year old black female reported to the officers that she had been and sexually assaulted at 610 North Buchanan Blvd. The investigation revealed tha the victim and a co-worker had an appointment to dance at 610 North Buchanan Blvd. The victim arrived at the residence and joined the other female dancer around 11:30pm on 3/13/2006. The victim reported that they began to perform their routine inside of the residence. After a few minutes, the males watching then began to get excited and aggressive. One male stated to the women
"I'm gonna shove this up you" while holding a broom stick up in the air so they could see it.
The victim and her fellow dancer decided to leave because they were concerned for their safety. After the two women exited the residence and got into a vehicle, they were approached by one of the suspects. He apologized and requested they go back inside and continue to dance. Shortly after going back into the dwelling the two women were seperated. Two males, Adam and Matt pulled the victim into the bathroom. Someone closed the door to the bathroom where she was, and said
"sweet heart you can't leave." The victim stated she tried to leave, but the three males (Adam, Bret, and Matt) forcefully held her legs and arms and raped and sexually assaulted her anally, vaginally and orally. The victim stated she was hit, kicked, and strangled during her assault. As she attempted to defend herself, she was overpowered. The victim reported she was sexually assaulted for an approximate 30 minute time period by the three males.
During a search warrant at 610 N. Buchanan on 3-16-2006 the victim's four red polished fingernails were recovered inside the residence consistent to her version of the attack. She claimed she clawing at one of the suspect's arms in an attempt to breathe while being strangled. During that time the nails broke off. The victim's make up bag, cell phone, and identification were also located inside the residence during the search warrant. Finally, a pile of twenty dollar bills were recovered inside the residence totalling $160.00 consistent with the victim claiming $400.00 cash in all twenty dollar bills was taken from her purse immediately after the rape.
The big news today has been the
email found to have been written by one of the lacrosse players...
On 3/7/2006 Sgt. Gottlieb was contacted by a confidential source. The source provided Sgt. Gottlieb a copy of an email sent by email address
ryan.mcfayden@duke.edu. The email dated March 14, 2006 at 1:58 stated:
To whom it may concern
tomorrow night, after tonights show, ive decided to have some strippers over to edens 2c. all are welcome.. however there will be no nudity. i plan on killing the bitches as soon as the[y] walk in and proceding to cut their skin off while cumming in my duke issue spandex.. all in besides arch and tack please respond
41
The number 41 is the jersey number for Ryan McFadyen, a member of the Duke Lacrosse team.
The
Salon Article, I mentioned at the beginning of this diary, points to this being just one of many incidents that have pointed out some of the divisions in Durham, North Carolina, mainly along race & class...
Fault lines between town and gown, black and white, the privileged and the poor already existed in Durham. But rarely have those lines been so deftly exposed, all at once, as they have by the allegations of what took place at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in the early hours of March 14. This confluence of events, people say, is the perfect storm.
"Here's a perfect story of what we've had to deal with in the past," explains Terrill Bravender, director of adolescent medicine at Duke University Medical Center, who lives within a block of the infamous lacrosse party house. "Last year, in middle of the baby-oil-wrestling party that made it to the national news, there were a whole bunch of people in my yard, milling around, out on the sidewalk and in the side yard. I went outside to ask them to leave, and I saw a guy peeing on the side of my house. So I told him to stop. "The guy turned around and said, 'What's the matter?' "I explained that he was peeing on my house. "He again asked, 'What's the matter?'
And what about the Lacrosse team members?
"There's a social hierarchy at Duke, and they're at the top," explains O'Sullivan. "They must have such a feeling of power." Her friend Katie Brehm, also a sophomore, chimes in, "But we give them that power. Why do we look up to them?" "Because they're hot!" says Julia Blessing, a sophomore from Ann Arbor, Mich. "And they have, like, the best parties."
The lacrosse team's reputation for "Animal House"-like parties dates back at least a decade, if not more. Christopher Johnson, Duke Class of '01, remembers the Duke lacrosse parties as pure debauchery. "Their section would be trashed, there would be girls all around ... There was this machismo, masculine energy," says Johnson, who now works on Capitol Hill for North Carolina's Rep. Mel Watt. Johnson, who is black, says that lacrosse players have always been at the top of the university's social strata because they personify the Duke ideal: rich, white, athletic, good-looking, prep-school-educated guys from the Northeast. Duke is indeed elite: Although Durham itself has almost equal numbers of black and white residents (with 15 percent living below the poverty level), blacks make up only 11 percent of Duke's undergraduate student body.
...Even in the spotlight, two days after all but the one black member of the team had submitted DNA samples, team members' behavior reflected a certain haughtiness. One woman watched with disbelief as lacrosse players slammed down shot after shot of alcohol at a local bar, shouting "Duke Lacrosse!" They seemed unaware, she said, of how poorly their indifference reflected on the university. (She was subsequently banned from the bar and its softball team for writing a letter to the local paper about the incident.)
So is this incident a symptom of a larger problem, or just about a bunch of sick assholes getting out of control?