Who the heck would believe someone who says they were raped by 20 men but didn't have any injuries? No wonder the cops didn't believe her.
By AARON BEARD,, Associated Press Writer
Police did not tell city leaders they had any concerns about the credibility of a woman who said she was raped at a party thrown by Duke University's lacrosse team, Mayor Bill Bell said Tuesday, adding he's seen nothing to suggest officers haven't vigorously investigated the case. But Bell directed the city manager to ask police about a report released Monday by Duke, which concluded the university's administration was slow to respond to the allegations in part because city police initially said the accuser "kept changing her story and was not credible."
"If they just walked away from it and hadn't attempted to pursue further investigation then that might merit some indication that they weren't taking it seriously," Bell said. "But as far as I know, they've been trying to investigate and get information."
According to the Duke report, the accuser - a 27-year-old black student at nearby North Carolina Central University - initially told Durham police she was raped by 20 white men, but later said she was attacked by three. Durham police told campus officers "this will blow over" and that if any charges were filed, "they would be no more than misdemeanors," the report said.
A grand jury has indicted two team members - sophomores Reade Seligmann, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, of Garden City, N.Y. - with rape, kidnapping and sexual assault. District Attorney Mike Nifong has said he hopes to charge a third person.
The report did not say exactly who made the comments about the accuser's credibility, only that they were related from Durham police to the university's police department.
"We need to get down to the specifics: What officers were involved? What did they say? When did they say it? And to whom did they say it?" he said.
The campus police's operations report, released by Duke on Tuesday, does not say which Durham officer told campus police the victim changed her story and that no charged were expected.
One of the report's authors, Julius Chambers, a leading civil rights attorney and former chancellor at N.C. Central, said he didn't know who made the comments. He said the committee that prepared the report made no independent effort to speak with Durham police, and relied on material provided by campus officers.
"We tried to talk with everybody we could in the time we had," Chambers said. "It's my recollection Durham police were not available to talk. They kind of turned everything over to Duke police from the investigation."
As they did Monday, both Nifong and Durham police declined to comment Tuesday, but city manager Patrick Baker echoed Bell's comments that city police considered the allegations a serious matter.
"It would seem to me if the state of mind of the Durham Police Department was going to be articulated in a report, you would probably want to speak with the Durham Police Department," Baker said.
Defense attorneys jumped on the report's details, calling the police's apparent questions about the accuser's credibility consistent with their investigation of her background, which includes a previously allegation of rape that did not lead to any charges.
But Scott Berkowitz, president of the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, a victim-rights group, said the first police officers to speak with a rape victim often don't have the training and experience needed to accurately judge the merits of a complaint. The Duke report said the police's comments about the accuser's credibility were made the day after the March 13 party.
"It's important to note that once the experienced folks got there and started investigating this, they found her story credible and concluded that a violent crime took place," he said.
The Duke report did say a female campus police officer was at they hospital where police took the accuser after the party, and she descried her as "crying uncontrollably and visibly shaken ... shaking, crying and upset."
Such behavior, Berkowitz said, isn't uncommon.
"Dealing with witnesses immediately after any trauma is terribly complicated," he said. "They're emotional. They're not focused on the narrative. They're focused on the sheer terror that they just went through, so folks who have experience at it get the knack for how to deal with them and how to ask questions and how to back off and give her a little time."