Posted on 10/11/2007 10:57:59 AM PDT by SmithL
NEW YORK, (AP) -- Columbia University has refused to turn over security videotape that could help identify who hung a noose on a black professor's office door, police said Thursday.
Investigators began asking on Wednesday for tapes from cameras in the building, but have been rebuffed by administrators, said Paul Browne, the New York Police Department's top spokesman.
He said police will have to get a court order to force the school to provide video they believe could crack the case.
"It's unfortunate because it adds a time-consuming step to the investigation," Browne said.
A Columbia spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
Authorities were testing the 4-foot-long twine noose for DNA evidence, but had no suspects as of Thursday morning.
On Wednesday, the professor who was the target of the attack, Madonna Constantine, told hundreds of faculty and students at a rally on the Ivy League campus that the incident was a "blatant act of racism" that "reeks of cowardice and fear."
"I'm upset that our community has been exposed to such an unbelievably vile incident," she said.
Police believe the noose was placed on the doorknob of Constantine's office at Teachers College — Columbia's graduate school of education — Tuesday morning, when a colleague spotted it and notified authorities.
Police declined to discuss possible motives or suspects.
Constantine, 44, told police there was "ill will" between her and another professor who had replaced her while she was on an extended leave, a police official said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The racist Blacks are setting themselves up for the whole “boy who cried wolf” deal and don’t realize it.
Al Sharpton did it?:)
Oh, it’s Ahmanutjob! No, he’d already left, darn!
How were you correct?
Why do I have a sneaky suspicion that she (the prof) did it herself? She has been teaching African-American studies of some kind. Maybe attendance is going down and she wants to keep racism at the front in news to justify her position and purpose at the school.
Why else would the school refuse to give the tape to the police?
God forgive me if I’m wrong.
Columbia has lost any credibility. Turn the tape over if you are sincere. Hiding it means you have something to hide.
Just curious, does Columbia University, in this day and age, actually employ any white heterosexual males? Seriously they can’t have a very big pool of politically correct suspects.
In a way I agree, but . . . if this showed somebody drive up in a car with a Bush sticker, it would be the lead video on every news outlet. I suspect there is something on the tape that will change the way this story is seen.
Her name was Kerri Dunn. Here is a photo, the story link, and a parody song mocking her - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1302330/posts
Boy, I sure hope somebody doesn’t find a noose that isn’t empty before all this drives us nuts.
Amazing what persuasive power a little bitty subpoena has...
Columbia had the tape for over 24 hours before relenting. That’s plenty of time to eliminate the part that shows the perp. 10-1 the important part has been “accidentally” erased.
With those on the left, it's not the accuracy of the evidence, it's the seriousness of the charge. It doesn't matter if it really happened, but just that a black woman said an incident occured.
It flat-out doesn't even matter if the tape shows her sitting there in the hall weaving a rope from a spool of twine and tying the noose right in front of the camera. It will be still be believed that a racist white person did it, or in the very least that "Well, this still happens, so it doesn't matter if this one didn't." I guarantee that no one will go out of his way to clear up this "incident" were the tape to show it was perpetrated by the "victim".
The highest value incident to a race-baiter is a white man against a black woman. It's a combination of perceived power and social status of the particular demographics. But, ironically, if the woman is a wealthy professor, and the man a high school dropout, it's the same as if the man were the woman's boss. The perception is that the rich white man is just more sereptitious in his racism. It is a presumption that is hard to escape; that a white man is just naturally racist.
And a white man sure as hell better not say it didn't happen.
Oh, come on. Don't be so cynical. It will simply be a "malfunctioning camera".
It was a Nazi Swastika.
I recall a woman who claims she was the victim of a racially motivated attack appears to have made the story up.
In Texas I think. She said two white men abducted her, sexually assaulted her, and scrawled the letters K-K-K into her - maybe head, maybe chest.
Come to find out the “K”s were backwards, and she confessed to doing it in a mirror at home.
Exactly.
Also, there is something called a subpoena. They can get a court order for it.
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