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FinalCall.com News
National News
Black students rally around Duke rape victim
By Cash Michaels
The Carolinian
Updated Apr 18, 2006 - 5:25:00 PM
DURHAM, N.C. (NNPA) - They came to pray, hope and cry. More than 250 students of North Carolina Central University (NCCU) rallied in a candlelight vigil Apr. 3 to show their support and love for one of their own—the alleged victim of a brutal gang rape by several members of the predominately White Duke University lacrosse team at a wild off-campus party over four weeks ago.
Though many of the students at this small historically Black university had heard about the crime on the news when it first broke, they were not aware until recently that the alleged victim was also an NCCU student. They immediately came together to embrace her, sponsor drives to raise money for her support, and use the opportunity to speak out in a unified voice against domestic violence, sexual abuse and racism.
“This is a family member,” Teresa Garrett, a junior, told the crowd. “We’re here to show our support that we love this young woman, and we are here [for her.]” Another NCCU junior, Maya Jackson, 19, said sexual assault is an issue Black females have been dealing with for a long time. “A lot of us are sick and tired of our women, our sisters and our mothers being violated. We need to take a stand.”
Though not pleased with how Durham authorities have handled the investigation thus far, the students pledged to give the system a chance to bring those responsible to justice.
Renee Clark, NCCU Student Body president, read a statement from NCCU Chancellor James Ammons. “These allegations of what occurred at the Duke University lacrosse team’s party are disturbing, inhumane and insensitive,” the statement read.
“Further, we stand against the use of racial slurs and the vilification of anyone. Every human being has the right to be treated with dignity and respect. Our students, faculty and staff are outraged by what has been alleged, but are also mindful of the fact that an investigation is still under way and no charges have been filed.”
Almost daily demonstrations by Duke University students outraged that administration officials not only kept quiet about the alleged assault for more than a week, but had not punished the lacrosse players for underage drinking, kept the story alive in the national and international press.
The halls of justice
Duke, one of the world’s most prestigious halls of higher learning, where the children of corporate, political and entertainment leaders attend, is considered a school of privilege in the midst of a small, racially divided Southern city where the median income is less than the $43,000 annual tuition.
That stellar reputation has now been put to the test by what many say is one of the most brutal crimes in the university’s otherwise illustrious history.
During the NCCU rally, students brought out three green rolls, which they invited the community to write messages of encouragement to the alleged victim on. “All of our love and prayers go out to you and your family,” David Summers, an NCCU student, wrote. “Justice will be done. Rest assured.”
Recent developments have resulted in the willing resignation of Coach Mike Pressler and lawyers for the lacrosse players have been busy trying to defend their clients by bringing to light apparent photographic evidence that they say will help their case. The photographs supposedly show the alleged victim arriving to the party already cut and bruised.
With regards to a malicious email sent recently by one of the lacrosse team members which describes inviting over strippers and “killing the b----es as soon as the[y] walk in,” the defense team touts the email as simply a reference to a movie entitled American Psycho, which some of the players have reportedly watched.
DNA testing results Apr. 10 failed to connect any of the members of the lacrosse team to the crime of rape. In an AP report Apr. 11 Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong maintained that a crime did occur at the Mar. 13 party, and that DNA evidence is not necessarily needed to prosecute.
While DNA results could make prosectuion difficult, it does not make it impossible claim court experts not connected to the case, the AP report continued.
“There’s an old saying that the absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence,” said Peter Neufeld, co-founder and co-director of the Innocence Project.
Anatomy of alleged crime
The alleged Black female victim, 27, is an NCCU sophomore, former Navy enlistee and a mother of two young children. Reportedly, the full-time student worked for an escort service, which is legal, to earn enough money for school and her family.
The night of the March 13 incident was the first time she had ever done exotic dancing at a party, authorities say. She was told that she and another Black female would be performing for only five men at a bachelor party in an old university-owned single-family house at 610 North Buchanan Blvd., directly across from Duke’s East Campus.
Upon arrival, however, the two women were surprised to find as many as 40 White males who, according to neighbors, had been drinking since early afternoon, waiting to be entertained. Once inside, when the White male participants became rowdy and started hurling racial slurs at the Black dancers, the alleged victim told a local newspaper that they both became frightened.
They left the house, but were coaxed back to finish performing. It was then that she was allegedly dragged into a bathroom, beaten, choked and sodomized by three assailants as she fought back. Authorities have not said what, if anything, happened to the other dancer during that time. Hours later, the alleged victim was taken to a Durham hospital, physically and emotionally traumatized by the experience.
“My father came to see me in the hospital,” she told Raleigh’s News & Observer newspaper. “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.”
“I knew somebody had beat her because you could look at her face and tell that her face was swollen,” the alleged victim’s father told The Herald-Sun newspaper. “It was all around her eyes and her jaw was swollen. She tried to get out of the car, but she couldn’t walk. Her leg still hurts.”
Mr. Nifong says based on what evidence he’s seen so far—broken fingernails, a make-up bag, cell phone, a shoe and approximately $400 in cash left behind at the scene, in addition to the forensic rape exam report from the hospital—a brutal rape did occur.
The search warrant describes the alleged crimes as first-degree forcible rape, first degree kidnapping, first-degree sexual offense, common law robbery and felonious strangulation.
Beyond the racial and brutal nature of the alleged crime, there is controversy on the way the investigation has been handled. It took Durham detectives two days to get a search warrant to enter the house to retrieve crucial evidence. They say they were busy interviewing the alleged victim and the three lacrosse team captains to develop enough probable cause to indeed conduct a legal search.
But students attending historically Black institutions like NCCU, or Shaw University and St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, say if any of their athletes were accused of gang-raping a White woman, police would never have waited this long to make the first arrest. The students see a double standard, especially for the privileged, predominately preppie-school White members of the Duke lacrosse team.
Although Duke University President Richard Brodhead announced Apr. 5 that the rest of the Duke lacrosse team’s season is suspended until “there is a clearer resolution of the legal situation,” none of the players are known to have been punished for violating university policies against under-age drinking and hiring an escort service.
The captains of the Duke lacrosse team “expressed regret for their errors of judgment and the embarrassment they had caused themselves, their families, the athletic department and the university,” when they met with Pres. Brodhead, but they completely denied any and all allegations involving rape, sex or brutality involving the alleged victim.
A non-testimonial order, requested by the district attorney and issued by a Durham Superior Court judge when police complained they weren’t getting complete cooperation, compelled 46 of the 47-member Duke lacrosse team to provide DNA evidence to Durham police technicians against their will on March 23. They were also photographed.
The 47th team member, who is Black, was not tested because the alleged victim claims her three attackers in the bathroom were all White.
Durham Attorney Thomas Loflin told a local television station that, “The order itself concedes, and uses five names that the police have information were not even present at the party, and they were compelled to give up DNA evidence.”
Though the Durham DA’s office insists that they were forced to compel virtually the entire team to take the tests because most of the players were not forthcoming with information about the crime, Atty. Loflin insists that defense attorneys can move to quash the DNA results in the appellate court if that implicates their clients.
Dasan Ahanu, founder of Men Against Rape Culture, a local nonprofit group that teaches young men why violating women is wrong, says if what Atty. Loflin says is true, it would be devastating to the alleged victim.
“If it ends up after all of the media attention that the way that [authorities] collected the DNA evidence means it may not be able to be used, and having the survivor sit and watch this,” he said, “it [would be] a shame, and re-enforces the idea that you don’t want to speak out, and this is already one of the most under-reported crimes that there is.”
