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To: Protect the Bill of Rights

http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-812597.cfm

Woman died minutes after call

BY BRIANNE DOPART : The Herald-Sun
bdopart@heraldsun.com
Jan 25, 2007 : 12:28 am ET

DURHAM -- New details about the discovery of the bloodied body of slain 25-year-old N.C. Central graduate student Denita Smith surfaced Wednesday.

Smith was gunned down outside her off-campus Campus Crossings Apartments unit on the morning of Jan. 4, allegedly by a woman whom Smith's fiancâ??© later told police had been stalking him.

Shannon Elizabeth Crawley of Greensboro has been charged with Smith's murder.

According to a death certificate still pending at the Durham County Health Department, Smith died at 8:30 a.m., approximately seven minutes after three officers were dispatched to Campus Crossings, 1400 E. Cornwallis Road, to investigate "the sound of shots," according to Durham police spokeswoman Kammie Michael.

The shots were reported to have been heard at the 600 and 700 buildings of the complex, Michael said. Smith's body was discovered at the bottom of the steps of the 1100 building "in a different area of the complex," she added.

According to Police Department call logs, Officer Lucas Wenceslao was first to arrive at the apartments and remained more than 30 minutes before radioing to say the call had been "cleared".

Michael declined to characterize efforts made by responding officers to investigate the report of shots heard. She also declined to answer when asked if officers stepped out of their patrol cars to investigate the initial report.

Call logs show that a man named "Mike," who identified himself as Campus Crossings' maintenance supervisor, reported at 8:19 a.m. that he had heard the sound of two shots fired. According to search warrants, "a groundskeeper" was the first to report the sound of shots, a call he made after arguing with a woman fitting Crawley's description whom, he later told investigators, was driving away from the building near which Smith's body was later found.

Reached for comment Wednesday evening, a man answering to the name "Mike" -- last name not known -- confirmed he was the groundskeeper who found Smith's body nearly two hours after reporting he heard shots.

He declined to comment any further, saying investigators had directed him "not to talk to anyone."

According to call logs, "Mike" reported a "girl dead at [the] bottom of [the] steps." Notes in the log indicate "Mike" was unsure of Smith's condition regarding breathing and consciousness at the time of the call. He told the dispatcher "her head is busted open and bleeding," and reported that her identification indicated the victim was Denita Smith.

---

TIMELINE

8:19 a.m. Caller reports "sound of two shots" to 911.

8:21 a.m. Officer Lucas G. Wenceslao is dispatched to Campus Crossings Apartments. He is the first of three officers dispatched.

8:30 a.m. Denita Smith's estimated time of death per pending death certificate.

8:56 a.m. Officer Wenceslao radioes in to pronounce the call "cleared."

10:01 a.m. Caller reports "girl dead at bottom of steps" to 911.

10:14 a.m. Officer Stephanie Wheeler arrives at Campus Crossings Apartments.






276 posted on 01/25/2007 8:56:08 PM PST by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: Protect the Bill of Rights

Board likely gets strip club again after judge's ruling

BY RAY GRONBERG : The Herald-Sun, Jan 25, 2007 : 11:58 pm ET

DURHAM -- Durham's Board of Adjustment is likely to have to again weigh in on a local man's attempt to site a new strip club off South Miami Boulevard, thanks to a judge's ruling that a March vote by the board that went against the project didn't settle the matter.

Lawyers for would-be club owner Larry Jones are trying to schedule a hearing, and weighing the strategy they'll use to get a decision that either goes in their client's favor or that at least could prompt a judge to rule on the merits of the case.

Jones' Oxford-based lawyers, Thomas Currin and Lori Dutra, are trying to overturn a Board of Adjustment vote that sided with city/county planners in saying that Jones' club would be too close to residential property to comply with Durham's land-use regulations.

In October, they and Assistant City Attorney Karen Sindelar argued the case in front of Superior Court Judge Ripley Rand who, a month later, declined to rule on the merits of the case.

Rand -- a visiting judge from Wake County and the son of N.C. Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, D-Cumberland -- said the case was "not yet ripe for review in Superior Court" because Jones hadn't exhausted his potential remedies with the Board of Adjustment and the city.

The judge's Nov. 21 ruling said there was no evidence "that the board has either officially approved or rejected" Jones' project.

The wording apparently referred to the fact that the adjustment board's March vote didn't address the plan for the club directly, but instead focused on whether City/County Planning Director Frank Duke interpreted Durham law correctly when he measured the required buffer zone for the strip club from the boundary of a residential lot, rather than from the more distant boundary of a residential zoning district.

The lot in question straddles a zoning boundary, and lies partly in a residential zone and partly in an industrial zone. Durham law requires strip clubs and other "adult establishments" to be 1,000 feet away from the "property line of a residential zone."

Jones' site is slightly more than 1,000 from the zoning boundary, but is only 768 feet from the property line of the lot that straddles the boundary.

Rand's decision surprised lawyers on both sides of the case because they hadn't thought there was a question about whether the board's vote was its last word on the matter. Neither side had argued the point, and the adjustment board has the power to hear appeals of Duke's interpretations of Durham land-use law.

"When we've had appeals of other interpretations, they've been considered final" and thus ready for a judge's review, Sindelar said.

Dutra said Rand felt the board needed to vote on Jones' plan, not just on Duke's reading of the law.

"Sometimes that happens in these more administrative proceedings," she added.

East Durham activists have opposed Jones' project because they believe another adult establishment in the area will contribute to its crime problems. Jones' lawyers, by contrast, have maintained that city officials are trying to suppress a business protected by the U.S. Constitution's free-speech guarantees.

Rand's service on the bench has drawn criticism from the John William Pope Civitas Institute, a Raleigh think tank whose vice president is Durham City Councilman Thomas Stith.

The institute's president, Jack Hawke, penned a newsletter article earlier this month that called Rand a "Friend of Mike's," a reference to Gov. Mike Easley.

Easley has appointed Rand to the bench three times, most recently after voters elected a different judge to Rand's seat. The governor and Rand's father, the Senate majority leader, are longtime friends.

http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-813002.cfm

* Jones is the owner of Diamond Girls, where Precious tried out and made off with the cab.
Rand and Easley-- well the governor does appear to be very strip-club friendly. Contributions anyone?


277 posted on 01/25/2007 11:18:20 PM PST by xoxoxox
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To: Protect the Bill of Rights

So DPD spent 30 minutes on the call and never rolled their fat behinds out of the patrol cars.

Nice work, boys. Back to the doughnut shop for another break. You deserve it.

They never made it over to building 1100 in that 30 minutes? Cops know or should know that the sound of shots fired in or around multiple buildings bounce and are hard to place, especially for a layperson passing by or inside another building. This is "Shots fired 101".

Lazy bastards.


284 posted on 01/26/2007 2:55:29 AM PST by Jezebelle (Our tax dollars are paying the ACLU to sue the Christ out of us.)
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