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March 14, 2006; all that we should have heard...
Topic Started: Mar 14 2010, 08:27 AM (295 Views)
Quasimodo



the entire news account, as it should have been reported in the local media:

Quote:
 
March 14, 2006 — A local stripper alleged to Durham police that three Duke students at a party forced her into a bathroom, where she said she was raped. It was later learned she told authorities several different versions of the alleged attack, was unable to provide descriptions; and her account was denied by her co-dancer. Authorities dismissed her claim as not credible and suggested she may have been attempting to avoid commitment to a detox facility.


If there was any more than this blurb in a local paper, then we need to ask who was responsible for the greater coverage, and why.
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Quasimodo

Brawley Case of the South
by John Leo
Friday, August 10, 2007

If anyone ever starts a museum of horrible explanations, the one-liner by Newsweek's Evan Thomas about his magazine's dubious reporting on the Duke non-rape case — "The narrative was right but the facts were wrong" — is destined to become a popular exhibit, right up there with "we had to destroy the village to save it."

What Mr. Thomas seems to mean is that the newsroom view of the lacrosse players as privileged, sexist, and arrogant white male jocks was the correct angle on the story. It wasn't.

According to Duke's female lacrosse team and other women on campus, the male players are solid citizens who treat women well. Many players volunteer to tutor poor children in Durham. Some players are privileged, but most come from ordinary middle-class homes. There is no evidence of a racist team culture.

One objectionable racial comment was reported that night, in response to a racial taunt from one of the strippers. It occurred after the party and the player involved was not one of those indicted. The mainstream press, most conspicuously the New York Times, botched the story by imposing a race-gender-class narrative line. The facts were wrong, as Mr. Thomas said, but the narrative line was wrong too.


(snip)

After the Tawana Brawley hoax was exposed, the Nation magazine ran an article saying that "in cultural perspective, if not in fact, it doesn't matter whether the crime occurred or not," since the pattern of whites abusing blacks is true. Whatever.

The "fake but accurate" argument pops up now and then in the wake of campus rape hoaxes. After a falsely accused male student was cleared, one feminist said, "I wouldn't have spared him the experience," meaning that the case was a useful teaching instrument about male behavior. Whether the rape had actually occurred was of lesser interest.

The "almost doesn't matter" argument surfaced in the Duke case too. At the mostly black North Carolina Central University, student Chan Hall spoke for many when he said the lacrosse players should be prosecuted for rape "whether it happened or not," to provide "justice for things that happened in the past."

The Brooklyn College professor, K.C. Johnson, who has blogged for months on the Duke case at his Durham-in-Wonderland site, pointed out that no prominent officials in Durham bothered to distance themselves from such comments. He wrote that among academics and reporters "because black people in the South have been wrongly convicted in the past, it is wrong to worry if whites, or Asians, or Hispanics are railroaded for political reasons today."

Several journalists have tried an "emotional truth" defense when caught concocting stories. Patricia Smith, for instance, fired from her job as a Boston Globe columnist after repeatedly writing about imaginary people and faking interviews, said in her heart she felt her stories were true. Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism said, "You get the sense reading her apology that she has the mentality of an artist who's talking about truth with a capital T, but journalism is fundamentally about nonfiction."

We now live in a docudrama world in which techniques of fiction and nonfiction are starting to blur. Many reporters think objectivity is a myth. They see journalism as inherently a subjective exercise in which the feelings and the will of the journalist function to reveal the truth of what has occurred. Two results are the emotional commitment to powerful but untrue story lines, and a further loss of credibility for the press
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Quasimodo

http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/08/duke-case-tipping-point-when-does-main_21.html

TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2006

Duke Case Tipping Point: When does the Main Stream Media call this case a Hoax?

Care to make a guess? When does someone in the main stream media (MSM) like the New York Times, or Newsweek, for example, finally use the word "Hoax" in a headline to describe the Duke case?

One more requirement, the word hoax must be used without a qualifier or question mark, in other words, saying something like "Duke Case a Hoax?" does not qualify. Saying something like, "The Duke Rape Hoax," is a winner.

The Johnsville News using some fancy guesswork will go out and set the over/under date for that big announcement and then let you put yourself on record.

But first, a few things to consider:

Will a MSM declaration of a hoax have to wait until sometime after all the formalities of a trial are digested?

Will someone in the MSM have the guts to step forward before a trial and label it as a hoax on a story headline?
Many cable news pundits like Dan Abrams, Greta Van Susteren, Bill O'Reilly, Joe Scarborough, and Tucker Carlson, from what we know, have stopped just short of calling it a hoax.

These cable pundits are essentially saying the case has no merit and should be dropped, unless Nifong has one hell of a smoking gun (which he does not). It's still a fair jump from that position to calling it a hoax. So we wait.

Would someone in MSM finally use hoax in a headline, once all the evidence is formally put forward at trial, but before the verdict? Our bet would be, no. If the case goes to trial there will be no MSM declaration of a hoax until after the innocent verdict is rendered. Who, would want to risk getting blindsided by some twisted run-away jury, reverse OJ verdict.

The Johnsville News first called this case a hoax in a story on June 16th - Duke Lacrosse Scandal: The Innocence Equation, and first used the word in a headline on July 7th - Duke Case: The Politically Correct Hoax or "Po-Ho".

Michael J. Gaynor on June 28th wrote one of the first hoax headlines: From Duke Rape Case to Duke Rape Hoax.

But, Sensible Mom was way out front on this one back on April 10th - Duke Rape Hoax.

Other factors effecting a hoax headline: does the Durham November election offer a possible fast track to getting a quicker hoax brand stamped on this case?

Any wildcards like a 60 Minutes story in September offer an early tipping point? Will Oz (Judge W. Osmond Smith) wipe out the prosecution's case with a ruling or two favorable to the defense? Now that Judge Smith is on board will the pace to a jury trial accelerate? (Note: We won't call Judge Smith "Oz" anymore unless he screws up)

Does it help any to look back at the last great big rape hoax, the Tawana Brawley case, to get an idea
?

Brian Mahoney said this regarding the Tawana Brawley scandal:

Ironically the book, Outrage: The Story Behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax, was written by six reporters who covered the story for The New York Times. It covers a great deal of the grand jury testimony and its findings. The special grand jury convened to look into the matter in 1988 heard testimony from 180 witnesses but not Ms. Brawley, and based its conclusions on the testimony from medical and scientific experts as well as eyewitnesses. The grand jury concluded that the story Tawana Brawley's advisors (for no one has ever heard Tawana's version of the events) told the press and the police was false: "Based on all the evidence that has been presented to the grand jury, we conclude that Tawana Brawley was not the victim of a forcible sexual assault by multiple assailants over a four-day period," the grand jury stated. "There is no evidence that any sexual assault occurred."

The Tawana Brawley hoax started in November 1987 and the above mentioned book was published in 1990.

One more consideration, will the MSM just decide to never call this case a hoax?
Instead, will they wimp out and try to use the bogus, but less judgemental word "scandal" to describe the mess. This probably depends on how much evil doing Mike Nifong gets away with before the legal system itself or MSM says enough.

As you can see handicapping this hoax question is not easy.

However, The Johnsville News will step forward and draw a line in the sand. The goal, if you are making book on an over/under, would be to get a nice 50-50% split on the date portion of this poll.

Poll Question: Will the Main Stream Media use the word "Hoax" to describe the Duke case before May 25, 2007?
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nyesq83
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Poll answer: nope
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Baldo
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I think before we are done with this case the Headline might read

"Durham DA, DPD, and Duke University Administration knew no Assault happened"



Edited by Baldo, Mar 14 2010, 08:41 AM.
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Quasimodo

http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2007/09/memo-to-editor-ashley.html


TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2007

Memo to: Editor Ashley

In an interview last week with Boston’s Public Radio station, Herald-Sun editor Bob Ashley launched a new defense of his paper’s embarrassing performance in the lacrosse case. After declining to affirm that he wasn’t afraid of a lawsuit because of the many H-S errors over the course of the past 18 months, he offered a new party line: those criticizing the H-S are engaged in after-the-fact attacks.

Ashley was, on occasion, almost comical in his remarks. For instance, at 21.41 of the link, he asserted, “I think we were skeptical in many instances.”

Really? When? This was a paper whose editorial page and chief reporter covering the case (John Stevenson) demonstrated not one iota of skepticism about anything Mike Nifong said or did between March and December 2006.

Ashley and Stevenson might have displayed a little more skepticism had they seen fit to quote Jim Coleman in any of their stories in the months after Coleman publicly criticized Nifong. The Duke Law professor first went public in mid-June 2006, in comments that have stood the test of time. Yet Ashley and Stevenson ignored Coleman’s remarks when he made them. And they ignored Coleman in July 2006. And in August 2006. And in September 2006. And in October 2006.

NAACP “case monitor” Irving Joyner, meanwhile, seemed to be on Herald-Sun speed dial, always ready to offer flaccid pro-Nifong commentary.


(snip)

Ashley must have missed posts such as those of Craig Henry at Lead and Gold. On July 5, 2006, the blog correctly noted that the H-S “still spins for Nifong even when it tries to take a bold, forthright position. Like most of the MSM, it refuses to confront all the disturbing facts in the case when it issues its agonizing reappraisals of the mess that is Durham justice . . . The Herald-Sun is still dissembling as it calls for a speedy trial and it is shirking its duty. Instead of waiting for he truth, the paper should start digging into the mistakes made by the media, Nifong, and Duke. Isn’t that what a watchdog press is supposed to do? The paper has no appetite for such work. Like most local media, they are loyal lapdogs for prosecutors. This is made clear by the gentle way they handle the questions about Nifong’s handling of the case . . .

“The DA gets the benefit of the doubt. From the beginning, the lax players were presumed guilty; their presumption of innocence went out the window back in March. But Nifong—he “must have some evidence.” The Herald-Sun does not tell us what it might be, but they are sure he must have something. It is a touching to see the media place such childlike faith in a politician. It is a faith that is contradicted by the facts we know—no DNA, no severe injuries, no date rape drug, no viable timeline, multiple false statements by the DA, absurdly contradictory accounts by the accuser and the second dancer. Why, then, does the Herald-Sun cut him so much slack?”

It didn't take Craig Henry 18 months to see through Editor Ashley's biased coverage.

(snip)

Indeed, virtually anyone who commented on the Herald-Sun’s coverage during the course of the case criticized it. The paper might have been spared additional criticism, as the Chronicle’s Adam Eaglin discovered, only because so many commentators didn’t read the H-S.

(snip)
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Quasimodo

http://leadandgold.blogspot.com/2006/07/duke-lacrosse-triangle-media-still-spin.html

WEDNESDAY, JULY 05, 2006

Duke lacrosse: Triangle media still spin for Nifong

The Durham Herald-Sun and the Raleigh News and Observer have weighed in again on the Duke Lacrosse case. Both opinion pieces still try to shore up the travesty that is DA Nifong’s politically motivated prosecution of an absurd case.

Let's talk sports

(snip)

This is not a minor point. By focusing on the racial aspects of the case, Starn is helping to poison the jury pool in Durham. At this point Nifong’s best hope is to make the case about race and not about the facts. Starn and the News and Observer are helping him.

In its editorial the Herald-Sun girded up its loins and . . . issued a bold call for a speedy trial. Like its “rival” the News and Observer, it still spins for Nifong even when it tries to take a bold, forthright position. Like most of the MSM, it refuses to confront all the disturbing facts in the case when it issues its agonizing reappraisals of the mess that is Durham justice.

Here are some of the lowlights:

To say that the case is like any other on Durham's docket is to deny reality. Intense national media scrutiny has been fed by attorneys' efforts to try the case before reporters and pundits instead of a judge and jury.


Talk about blaming the victim. The media frenzy took off before any of the defense attorneys said anything. The lacrosse team was convicted in a trial by media that Nifong fed with his interviews. But the H-S ignores that and implies that the defense team is at fault.

(snip)

And we hate to imagine the fallout if the lacrosse case winds up being decided by an election instead of in court.


Oh yes, the fallout (whatever do they mean?). That would be terrible. More terrible, apparently, than the way Nifong used the case to decide an election.

Duke and Durham need to learn lessons from this incident and decide how to make positive changes. But the healing can't really begin until all the truth comes out -- which is the purpose of a trial.

Actually, criminal trials are not the venue for establishing truth or helping Durham “learn lessons” or make “positive changes.” Trials determine the guilt of individual defendants.

The Herald-Sun is still dissembling as it calls for a speedy trial and it is shirking its duty. Instead of waiting for he truth, the paper should start digging into the mistakes made by the media, Nifong, and Duke. Isn’t that what a watchdog press is supposed to do?

The paper has no appetite for such work. Like most local media, they are loyal lapdogs for prosecutors. This is made clear by the gentle way they handle the questions about Nifong’s handling of the case.

Nifong's critics have questioned everything from his character to his legal savvy. We think that the 25-year veteran of the prosecutor's office must have some evidence, or he would have dropped the case long ago.

The DA gets the benefit of the doubt. From the beginning, the lax players were presumed guilty; their presumption of innocence went out the window back in March. But Nifong—he “must have some evidence.” The Herald-Sun does not tell us what it might be, but they are sure he must have something. It is a touching to see the media place such childlike faith in a politician. It is a faith that is contradicted by the facts we know—no DNA, no severe injuries, no date rape drug, no viable timeline, multiple false statements by the DA, absurdly contradictory accounts by the accuser and the second dancer.

Why, then, does the Herald-Sun cut him so much slack?

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Quasimodo

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/leoblog/archives/060411/duke_prosecutor_should_keep_hi.htm#more


Duke prosecutor should keep his mouth shut

by John Leo

April 11, 2006


Mike Nifong, the Durham, N.C., prosecutor, is illustrating the problems of trying the Duke rape case in the press.

No DNA match was found for any of the 46 white lacrosse players tested. While waiting an entire month for the DNA results, Nifong assured the public that three of the lacrosse players, so far unidentified and not charged, were guilty and "don't want to admit to the enormity of what they have done." He was apparently convinced of guilt because injuries to the alleged victim, a black exotic dancer, were consistent with rape.

He should have just shut up. Attorneys for the lacrosse players say they have time-stamped photos of the dancer arriving at the party on March 13 with some injuries visible on her body. Nifong is not totally responsible for the assumptions of guilt that dominated campus opinion, but his assurances surely played a role. The Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP chapter, said the players are "suffering from a deep sickness in their souls." Maybe they are. Neighbors say their heard racist shouts from the party site as the dancer left. Like Nifong, Barber would have been better off simply saying that the alleged crime was a horrible one and that if the young men are guilty, they should go to prison for a long time.

Radical feminists and their allies have wheeled out the customary antimale mantra
, proclaiming that Duke is in the grip of a "culture of rape." (Campus police reported four rapes total for the years 2002, 2003, and 2004.) After the surprising DNA results reported yesterday, some on campus were talking about a 2002 campus rape allegation, believed at the time but discredited after the same woman made a similar charge in 2004.

Photos of 43 of the 46 white players on the lacrosse team are appearing on campus posters. The message is that they should speak up, but the poster looks like a conventional "wanted" handbill that assumes guilt. A Duke student wrote to the Web site Real Clear Politics, "I have sensed a real mob mentality among the demonstrators, and I doubt many of them care about the truth or the victim. The fact is there are many people who desperately want this to be true, because it reinforces their preconceived notions."

Two Duke seniors, a male and a female, were harassed at a Durham fast-food restaurant, and the male was briefly knocked unconscious. According to the seniors, the attackers said Duke students weren't welcome "because they're all rapists" and "they're going to rape our women." Unconfirmed reports say threats of drive-by shootings have been made against the lacrosse team house.

(snip)

[Note that this is from US NEWS, NOT NEWSWEEK (in case there was any risk of confusion on that point...]
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sceptical

INSTEAD OF WHAT QUASI SUGGESTED WOULD HAVE BEEN AN ACCURATE, UNBIASED STORY. THIS IS WHAT THE N&O DID:

http://www.newsobserver.com/2006/03/25/87849/dancer-gives-details-of-ordeal.html?storylink=misearch

MARCH 25, 2006

Dancer gives details of ordeal

Samiha Khanna and Anne Blythe - Staff Writers
Tags: durham | duke_lacrosse

The woman who says she was raped last week by three members of the Duke University lacrosse team thought she would be dancing for five men at a bachelor party, she said Friday. But when she arrived that night, she found herself surrounded by more than 40.

Just moments after she and another exotic dancer started to perform, she said, men in the house started barking racial slurs. The two women, both black, stopped dancing.

"We started to cry," she said. "We were so scared."

Forty-six members of the men's lacrosse team submitted DNA samples Thursday in the unusual case. As of late Friday, there had been no arrests. Duke officials briefed university staff Friday on the allegations, and authorities vowed to crack the team's wall of solidarity.

"We're asking someone from the lacrosse team to step forward," Durham police Cpl. David Addison said. "We will be relentless in finding out who committed this crime."

He emphasized the seriousness of the accusations -- first-degree rape, kidnapping, assault by strangulation and robbery.

Details of the accusations were made public this week in a warrant authorizing a search of the three-bedroom rental house where the attack is alleged to have taken place.

The accuser spoke Friday, struggling not to cry as she recounted the events of the early hours of March 14 at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., next to Duke's East Campus.

It is The News & Observer's policy not to identify the victims of sex crimes.

The accuser had worked for an escort company for two months, doing one-on-one dates about three times a week.

"It wasn't the greatest job," she said, her voice trailing off. But with two children, and a full class load at N.C. Central University, it paid well and fit her schedule.

This was the first time she had been hired to dance provocatively for a group, she said. There was no security to protect her, and as the men became aggressive, the two women started to leave. After some of the men apologized for the behavior, the women went back inside, according to police. That's when the woman was pulled into a bathroom and raped and sodomized, police said.

She hesitated to tell police what happened, she said Friday. She realized she had to, for her young daughter and her father.

A hurt that would last

"My father came to see me in the hospital," she said. "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."

Jason Bissey, who was on his porch next door during the party, saw the victim that night. He said Friday that he wishes he had called police at the first sign something was wrong.

He saw at least 30 men go into the white three-bedroom house, which Duke officials say is rented by three lacrosse team captains.

Bissey saw two women arrive and, after they were in the house 20 minutes, come out. As they got into a car, men shouted, Bissey said.

"Some of them were saying things like, 'I want my money back,' " Bissey said.

He recalled the racially charged statements at least one man was yelling at the victim.

"When I was outside, one guy yelled at her, '... Thank your grandpa for my cotton shirt,' " Bissey said.

After a few minutes, everything seemed to calm down, he said. One of the women headed back into the house, saying she forgot her shoes.

Days later, Bissey learned one of the young women reported being raped.

"If I had called in the beginning, maybe the cops would have gotten there before this happened," he said.

Bissey and other neighbors are accustomed to hearing loud parties at the house. It's one of many rental houses near the Duke campus where police stay busy, breaking up rowdy parties and rounding up minors suspected of underage drinking.

Last fall, residents were worried about more than drunken antics and loud music. Many complained that students disregarded their neighbors and police, and were disrespectful when confronted.

Police have been called to the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. four times since September, according to police records. The house is one of 15 properties the university bought in February to address neighborhood complaints. The university plans to sell the dwellings to quieter homeowners who agree not to rent them out.

After hearing about the alleged rape, residents in neighborhoods around Duke sent e-mail to one another and police, criticizing landlords for tolerating an "Animal House" atmosphere.

Residents also questioned why police waited two days to search the house after the rape was reported.

Addison, the police spokesman, said that between receiving the call and searching the house, police were interviewing the victim, residents of the house and other witnesses. He also explained that one team member was excluded from the DNA testing because he is black and therefore doesn't match the description of the suspects.

The tests are scheduled to be sent to the State Bureau of Investigation in Raleigh for testing, and Durham authorities said they are trying to have the process expedited.

All that Duke officials can do, they say, is wait for the investigation to be completed.

Art Chase, Duke sports information director, said lacrosse coach Mike Pressler and athletics department administrators had spoken with team captains about the incident. The department was not conducting an investigation of its own, Chase said.

"I think they'll let the judicial system run its course," he said.

Chase said he was not sure of the occasion for the party. Players did not return phone calls, and their parents remained mum, as did Pressler. He and the team were preparing Friday for today's home game against Georgetown University.

Paul Haagen, chairman of Duke's Academic Council, was in a faculty meeting about the incident.

'This is sad'

"There was a sense of, 'This is sad, and it's terrible,' " Haagen said. "Beyond that, people don't know what's going on."

Haagen, a law professor who specializes in sports law, said studies show that violence against women is more prevalent among male athletes than among male students in general -- and higher still among such "helmet sports" as football, hockey and lacrosse.

"These are sports of violence," he said. "This is clearly a concern."
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sceptical

WHILE THE ABOVE ARTICLE HAS RECEIVED MUCH DESERVED CRITICISM, THE FOLLOWING N&O ARTICLE IS JUST AS OUTRAGEOUS:

http://www.newsobserver.com/2006/04/09/46527/team-has-swaggered-for-years.html?storylink=misearch

APRIL 9, 2006

Team has swaggered for years

Jim Nesbitt, Benjamin Niolet and Lorenzo Perez - Staff Writers
Tags: duke_lacrosse

The warning signs of a Duke University lacrosse team skidding toward disaster are scattered through the courthouse records of Durham and Orange counties -- and have been for at least the past seven years.

Speeding down I-40 while drunk. Urinating in public. Using an adult's ID to buy a case of beer while underage. Kicking in the slats of a fence after an argument with a girlfriend.

Since 1999, records show, 41 Blue Devil lacrosse players -- about 31 percent of all players on the roster from then until now -- have been charged with a variety of rowdy and drunken acts.

Of this year's squad of 47 players -- their season canceled, their coach exiled and their university shamed -- roughly a third have been charged with similar misdemeanors.

In contrast, records show, only two members of Duke's 27-man soccer squad for this year have been arrested -- on charges of misdemeanor property damage and resisting arrest. Four of this year's 22 baseball players have been arrested in connection with underage alcohol offenses, all misdemeanors, records show.

Taken separately, the charges against Duke lacrosse players read like standard-issue, alcohol-fueled offenses of college students experiencing their first taste of freedom. Most are minor cases, quickly settled, that fall far short of the allegations of an escort service dancer who says she was gang-raped during a team party March 13 in the bathroom of a white rental house on Buchanan Boulevard where three lacrosse co-captains lived.

None of the misdemeanor charges encompasses the ugliness of team member Ryan McFadyen's searing e-mail in which he threatened to kill and skin strippers or a racially provocative insult shouted by an unidentified white male on Buchanan Boulevard the night of the team party.

But taken as a body of work, the charges track the noisy passage of a championship lacrosse team with a reputation for a swaggering sense of entitlement and privilege. They underscore the hard-drinking image of the Duke lacrosse team -- which some residents say is a super-sized version of the university's elitist, party-hearty ethos.

"There is a culture at Duke of an entitlement to be drunk in the evenings and on the weekends," said Robert Panoff, a former Notre Dame club lacrosse player who has lived for more than a decade in Trinity Park, the neighborhood on the edge of Duke's east campus where the lacrosse team captains lived.

"That's the attitude that pervades the Duke campus, and it's not just the lacrosse team," said Panoff, founder and executive director of a nonprofit research and education organization. "There is a particular swagger at Duke. Is there a particular machismo and variation of that swagger on the lacrosse team? Absolutely."

Panoff is quick to point out that lacrosse is not a monolithic culture. But for other Durham residents, the lacrosse imbroglio has raised racial tensions.

The dancer who is alleging the rape is black. She says her three unidentified attackers are white. All but the team's lone black player have submitted to DNA tests, and Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong says results could be released this week. Nifong says he's confident the woman was sexually assaulted. But attorneys for the players say no rape, assault or sex occurred.

'Preppy arrogance'

The case has ripped an already frayed town-and-gown relationship, underscoring the friction between the school, with its $41,000-a-year cost and walled campus, and the surrounding city.

"It's this preppy arrogance that they will never be held accountable for what they've done -- that their daddies will get them out of it," said Eugene Brown, a Durham city councilman who lives on Buchanan Boulevard, a block from the rental house.

"What do you do when you walk out and some guy is urinating on your house and you ask him to stop and he refuses?" Brown said. "We've been living with this for years, and the lacrosse players were the worst."

On the field, Duke's team has the reputation for playing a disciplined and aggressive brand of lacrosse, a fast-paced, hard-hitting game invented by American Indian tribes. Under coach Mike Pressler, who resigned last week, they won Atlantic Coast Conference championships in 1995, 2001 and 2002. Last year, they narrowly lost the NCAA championship game to another perennial lacrosse power, Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore.

But the team's behavior off the field rankles some Duke students, causing a smoldering resentment against lacrosse athletes they see as more aloof, isolated and arrogant than fraternities or other university athletic teams.

"They're rude," said Jordan Greene, 21, a senior philosophy and art major. "They're everything everyone [in Durham] wants to hate. ... I can't wear a Duke shirt in town without people automatically making assumptions about my background, whether or not I have a million-dollar trust fund."

Former Duke baseball players say loutish behavior and dancers at team parties weren't just a lacrosse thing -- they did the same thing and often joined the lacrosse team at tailgate parties during Duke football games.

But Duke's current baseball players haven't racked up an arrest record like the lacrosse team's. Triangle court records show 16 lacrosse players currently on the roster have been arrested in the past three years on charges ranging from public urination on a private residence to underage possession of a malt beverage to helping a minor get a mixed drink.

In addition, sophomore player Collin Finnerty and two friends were arrested last fall in Washington on simple assault charges. Finnerty was ordered to perform 25 hours of community service in Washington; if he does, the charges will be dropped, his attorney said.

Duke officials have struck different stances on the series of alcohol-related charges against lacrosse players. At a news conference March 28, university President Richard Brodhead and Athletic Director Joe Alleva said the charges weren't a warning sign of a team out of control.

"Many, many things in university life are aggravated by the presence of alcohol," Brodhead said. "Talk to anybody at any university, you will learn the truth of that. At the same time, the presence of alcohol does not guarantee that really bad things happen thereafter."

Alleva said: "I do not believe that those incidents, as the president has said, has any correlation with the severe allegations that are made in this case."

But Tallman Trask III, Duke's executive vice president, told The New York Times last week that he pulled all the disciplinary records on the lacrosse team a year ago -- violations that in hindsight should have been a red flag.

On Wednesday, Brodhead announced five committees charged with investigating the culture of the lacrosse program, student conduct, Duke's handling of the gang-rape allegation and other issues.

Brodhead said a faculty group will investigate the lacrosse team's renegade reputation and "look into that whole history and tell us whether that's true or not."

Lacrosse defended

Former lacrosse players at Duke and other colleges defend their sport. So do lacrosse coaches at the public high schools and prep schools that feed players to Duke's program. They also worry that the allegations that caused Duke officials to cancel the team's season will blunt the growing popularity of their sport and give college officials a ready reason not to make lacrosse a varsity sport.

"It's had a negative impact," said Aaron Fenton, a first-team All-American at Duke who graduated in 2005, one of three brothers to play for Pressler. "I don't want everybody to label lacrosse players in general the way the Duke lacrosse team has been. Playing for Duke was the best experience of my life."

Fenton said the portrayals of the team's rowdy partying and elitist attitudes were greatly exaggerated. Playing lacrosse at Duke builds character, he said.

"It taught me to be a man," said Fenton, a goalie drafted this year to play professionally for the San Francisco Dragons. "We were the average student-athlete at Duke. We weren't elitist. I don't think people saw us that way."

Fenton's mother, Dr. Marie Savard, an internal medicine specialist from Wynnewood, Pa., said she was saddened by Pressler's departure and shocked by McFadyen's e-mail. McFadyen and his parents could not be reached for comment about his e-mail.

"I would be devastated if one of my sons wrote something like that, even if they were drunk," she said.

Robinson "Rob" Bordley, head coach of boys' lacrosse at the Landon School in Bethesda, Md., a private school that has five graduates on this year's Duke team, said his former charges told him that Duke may decide by May 1 whether to resume lacrosse next year. With Pressler gone, such added uncertainty hurts Duke's chances to land top prospects, including several Washington-area players.

"People would be insane right now to sign with Duke without even knowing if there will be a program there," he said.

Bordley said he has used McFadyen's lurid e-mail as an object lesson for his players.

"I told them this was another illustration of what alcohol does to a kid's brain," he said. "Who in their right mind would make the rational decision to send an e-mail like that?"

Alcohol and young, aggressive athletes playing a violent game are a volatile combination, said William E. Scroggs, senior associate athletic director at UNC-Chapel Hill and chairman of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's rules committee for men's lacrosse.

"Everything that goes wrong in intercollegiate athletics, behaviorally, revolves around alcohol," said Scroggs, UNC's former men's lacrosse coach, ticking off a list that includes drunken driving, fights and sexual assaults. "My personal opinion is it's an alcohol issue, not a lacrosse or athletics issue. These types of things don't happen on a Tuesday afternoon when no one's been drinking."

The pipeline to Duke

Lacrosse, once a minor sport limited to such places as Long Island, Baltimore and New England, is now the fastest-growing sport in the United States, according to an April 2005 Sports Illustrated article. The game's popularity has pushed its boundaries to Colorado and California.

Traditional lacrosse powerhouses fall into two camps. One camp includes prestigious private schools such as Landon or Delbarton School in Morristown, N.J., an all-boys academy administered by Benedictine monks. Five Duke lacrosse players, including co-captain Dave Evans, are Landon grads. Five, including McFadyen, went to Delbarton.

But a third of Duke's lacrosse team -- 14 players -- come from Long Island, home to a far more physical brand of lacrosse. They are graduates of public school powerhouses such as Garden City High School or Massapequa High School or perennial Catholic contenders such as Chaminade High School.

If the Triangle is basketball-crazed, consider Long Island lacrosse-obsessed.

"It's almost like a disease, but in a good way," said Sean Keenan, assistant boy's lacrosse coach at Oceanside High School on Long Island and 1987 lacrosse All-American at Adelphi University. "You fall in love with the game and you can't even watch baseball. It's hockey on grass, but much more scoring makes it more exciting. ... It's an emotional game and you play it as long as you can and when you can no longer play, you coach."

Keenan worries about the impact of the Duke lacrosse scandal on the sport he loves.

"It's a blemish for all lacrosse players," he said. "It's going to be a blemish that causes colleges to take a second look at lacrosse. Hopefully, it's not a black card that halts the collegiate expansion of lacrosse."

(Staff writers Anne Blythe, Sam LaGrone, Michael Biesecker, Jane Stancill and Ned Barnett and researcher Brooke Cain contributed to this report.)
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