Duke LaCrosse

[NJTank]

Im shocked this hasnot gotten any play yet but several members of Duke's highly ranked Lacrosse team have been accussed of rape and now the whole team has been suspended.

Story

[Thad]

It's a sad day, Duke was one of the favorites to win the national championship.

This has no reflection on the coach, who when I met him, seemed like a clean cut guy who puts up with no BS from his player.

It's also sad that this is the main headline news when teams like Cornell, UVA, and Navy are having incredible seasons.

[HedleyLamarr]

"Qualifications?"

"Rape, murder, arson, and rape."

"You said 'rape' twice."

"I like rape!"

[winters in buffalo]

This has recieved quite a bit of attention here...the lead story over the past few days. It's a horrible story. The crime was disgraceful and the circumstances surrounding it were ugly at best.

The reaction from the local community has been overwhelming, but I have a couple issues with they way they've gone about it.

First, there were alledgedly 3 attackers, yet all 47 players have been publicly scrutinized, particularly 15 who have had past run-ins with the police. There have been several protests on campus and outside of the lacrosse house, and players names and past records have been mentioned in the media. Pretty much a witch hunt.

Now, I understand that part of the outrage is that the team isn't talking, but where are the protests every other time that happens? That's typical gang mentality; one member commits a crime and the rest who know the facts just cover it up. Durham has more than its share of gangs, so why isn't there outrage for every other gang crime & cover up. If even one got this kind of attention, I'm sure a lot more would be done to the protect the community.

Further, what about the guys who are innocent of the crime and have no useful information to provide? All but one has provided DNA samples and issued a statement that the DNA evidence will clear them. Will a crowd gather outside thier homes to apologize after they've been exonerated? I doubt it.

The school has come under a lot of criticism for not taking action, and for doing it slowly. But, I think they should stay out of it for now. The crime didn't take place on campus, and the police are thoroughly investigating it. No one is even certain that the attackers were Duke students. They may have just been guys at the party. The university should stay out of it until someone has been charged. Otherwise, they're just getting in the way, and probably punishing at least a few innocent people.

If someone knows something they should come forwarded. But until a suspect is identified and charged, someone needs to protect those guys who are genuinely innocent. In the end, justice will prevail for the victim of the crime, but I don't think there'll be any justice for the victims of the backlash.

[oz615]

Further, what about the guys who are innocent of the crime and have no useful information to provide? All but one has provided DNA samples and issued a statement that the DNA evidence will clear them. Will a crowd gather outside thier homes to apologize after they've been exonerated? I doubt it.

The school has come under a lot of criticism for not taking action, and for doing it slowly. But, I think they should stay out of it for now. The crime didn't take place on campus, and the police are thoroughly investigating it. No one is even certain that the attackers were Duke students. They may have just been guys at the party. The university should stay out of it until someone has been charged. Otherwise, they're just getting in the way, and probably punishing at least a few innocent people.

If someone knows something they should come forwarded. But until a suspect is identified and charged, someone needs to protect those guys who are genuinely innocent. In the end, justice will prevail for the victim of the crime, but I don't think there'll be any justice for the victims of the backlash.

THANK YOU.,That main thing im concerned about there,even if all the players are cleared,that damage has already been done.An WTF happend to "Innocent Until Proven Guilty",does that even exist any more?

[NJTank]

Well it looks pretty bad if their is bruising and DNA and she says she was attacked, if that DNA comes up on 3 players then I say shut the mother downn the rest of the year the other players shoudl have come clean at best they were sticking up for teammates at worse they were accesories after the fact.

[winters in buffalo]

Well it looks pretty bad if their is bruising and DNA and she says she was attacked, if that DNA comes up on 3 players then I say shut the mother downn the rest of the year the other players shoudl have come clean at best they were sticking up for teammates at worse they were accesories after the fact.

Well, she was definitely attacked. Whether it was by any of the players or not has yet to be determined.

[NJTank]

Yeah thats why they took the DNA if it comes up and the players are a match then the Blue Devils should shut down the rest of the year.

[harperdc]

yeah, that was one of my thoughts being a college student right now - "wait, she was assaulted at a party? where's the guarantee it was one of the lacrosse players?"

I think it'd be really funny if it were guys not on the team responsible. but then they'd probably get the team re-instituted, and according to Murphy's law they'd win the national title and become the great human interest story

[NJTank]

Hey anything can happen the DNA wont lie either way.

[DMadSport]

Further, what about the guys who are innocent of the crime and have no useful information to provide? All but one has provided DNA samples and issued a statement that the DNA evidence will clear them. Will a crowd gather outside thier homes to apologize after they've been exonerated? I doubt it.

The school has come under a lot of criticism for not taking action, and for doing it slowly. But, I think they should stay out of it for now. The crime didn't take place on campus, and the police are thoroughly investigating it. No one is even certain that the attackers were Duke students. They may have just been guys at the party. The university should stay out of it until someone has been charged. Otherwise, they're just getting in the way, and probably punishing at least a few innocent people.

If someone knows something they should come forwarded. But until a suspect is identified and charged, someone needs to protect those guys who are genuinely innocent. In the end, justice will prevail for the victim of the crime, but I don't think there'll be any justice for the victims of the backlash.

THANK YOU.,That main thing im concerned about there,even if all the players are cleared,that damage has already been done.An WTF happend to "Innocent Until Proven Guilty",does that even exist any more?

Oh, I'm sure "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" still exists in the traditional US criminal justice system. It's just that there are those with this "Guilty Until Proven Innocent" mentality, especially those in the news media and talk radio, that drive their predjudces home. This is especially true in the "Missing Girl in Aruba" case, where the Greta Van Sustrens and Nancy Graces of the world cite 2 acquantices for not being entirely revealing and brand them as the perpretrators of the crime(crime?), going so far as to air out their unrelated dirty laundry. Should this be defended? Of course not, but it's just that this unfortunate attitude currently has the biggest megaphone and doesn't seem to want to give it up anytime soon.

On a related thought... Wilbon and LeBetard bounced around this idea on "PTI" Wednesday, that you'd never see a shutdown like what happened to Duke lacrosse in a sport like basketball or football. Better and easier, they reason, to set such an example in a low-revenue sport instead of the big-name teams... that way, the boosters wouldn't throw a fit and their money would still pour in to Athletic Department coffers. I admit I tend to agree on this: If this would've happened with a basketball or football team, you'd likely see nothing more than an investigation and suspensions of the guilty parties (if appilcable), rather than lumping in the truly innocent with the truly guilty (as what may have happened here with Duke lacrosse).

[VitaminD]

I admit I tend to agree on this:  If this would've happened with a basketball or football team, you'd likely see nothing more than an investigation and suspensions of the guilty parties (if appilcable), rather than lumping in the truly innocent with the truly guilty (as what may have happened here with Duke lacrosse).

Right now, everyone on the team is innocent in the eyes of the law. The court of public opinion is another matter, far more difficult to adjudicate.

You can't take this situation and apply it to basketball or football, at Duke or any other school.

The lacrosse team has 47 members. The woman alleges she was assaulted by a group of white males. This exonerates the 1 black member of the team, leaving 46 potential suspects on the team. In some display of solidarity, no one on the team is coming forward to offer any information that could properly identify the guilty parties. So the school is doing what it can - punishing the team as a whole until the guilty can be sorted out from the innocent. If the players helped out with the investigation, this could be expedited. Moreover, if the guys who did this weren't on the team, wouldn't the team have come forward quickly and vociferously to deny the charges made against them? That, and the fact that it happened at a party thrown by the lacrosse team in a house rented by lacrosse players, gives the whiff of guilt to the case. Until the guilty parties are identified, as long as the players choose to circle the wagons and remain unified, they all get the punishment many of them likely don't deserve.

On most D-1 basketball and football teams, the racial mix is better than 46 to 1, so the chances of suspending 95%-plus of one team because the alleged perpetrators are of a certain race are essentially nil. But you could bet that if something similar happened, the furor would be so great from the public that a big-time team would shut down for a while. Plus, the boosters may be pissed that they couldn't see their beloved teams play, but wouldn't they also be pissed that their donations went to scholarships for rapists and violent criminals? And wouldn't they be embarrassed and the shame brought on their alma mater by these same miscreants? I know the spate of arrests of UNC football players over the past 3-4 years is embarrassing to me.

[winters in buffalo]

Yeah thats why they took the DNA if it comes up and the players are a match then the Blue Devils should shut down the rest of the year.

So punish the whole team for the crimes of a few? Even if they determine that all of the attackers were players, how is that fair to the rest of the guys that weren't involved? Even if she was attacked by team members, she wasn't attacked by the entire team.

I'd be willing to bet that most of them have no idea what really happened or who was involved.

Have you ever been to a party where 50+ people were in the same house? You don't know what's going on in the same room, let alone the same house. You don't even know who else is there.

VD... the team has denied the charges. That's not to say that they're innocent, but they've denied the charges and provided DNA samples; I can't expect them to say more. If they were involved, their silence is their constitutional right. If they weren't involved, their silence may very well be from not having information to provide.

Let's be fair about it... punish the guilty, protect the innocent.

Now, if the school wants to go after them for having a party with underage drinking and strippers, well, then let's shut down NCAA athletics.

[Cujo]

ESPN is reporting the Duke lacrosse head coach is out and the entire Duke season is cancelled due to the entire stripper scandal. I guess an email was uncovered and that linked the head coach. I didn't get all the details, but it looks like big trouble for Duke.

[pcgd]

An email was recovered from one of the players. In it he said he wanted to bring strippers up to his dorm room, kill them and skin them. Somehow (I still can't wrap my brain around this) his lawyer says this makes him innocent.

The coach has resigned because of what happened, but not cause he's involved directly. More or less, he probably feels responsible for letting the team get out of control.

[winters in buffalo]

Updates to the story are being posted here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/duke_lacrosse

The coach quit this afternoon, and now the N&O is reporting that Ryan McFadyen has been suspended from the university.

[NJTank]

Well that email makes him look guilty and makes this whole thing worse what was he thinking.

[WSU151]

No DNA match for 46 Duke players

So no DNA match for any member of the team, which pretty much means the stripper's allegations were completely false. Add that DNA (non)evidence to the pictures taken of the stripper at the beginning of the party, and what you have is someone looking for a cheap opportunity to worsen race relations and make some money.

F'in bitch.

It's been a bad month for black women trying to make noise by accusing white men of shady activity. Man...

[winters in buffalo]

This is huge.

None of the DNA matches, despite the DA's statement in the warrant that the DNA eveidence would identify the guilty parties.

No DNA was found in the places that she said the rape happened.

No player's DNA on the broken nails found at the scene

Photographs showing that the injuries associated with the attack were in place before the alleged rape.

Photographs that shred the accuser's timeline.

Now, going back to my first post... who's going to hold an apology rally now that they're going to be cleared?

[ProvidenceRI]

I was actually in the football fraternity (even though I am a huge dork) at a prestigious school like Duke.

The minority students there filed a complaint that we were awarding our pledges "points" for hooking up with minorities. It was both funny and scary. Funny that people would resort to fabricated stories, and scary that we could have gotten kicked off campus.

This was a total lie. I lived in the house, and never heard of such a rumor.

I'm not saying that the Duke players are guilty or innocent... I think that people should be aware that people lie, especially when they are jealous. Maybe some player bad mouthed her (drunk guys DO say dumb things) when she was stripping, so she got pissed and made this story up.