Durham police under microscope [possible police misconduct in Duke rape case]

News and Observer ^ | 6 May 2007 | Joseph Neff

[TommyDale]

Well, Neff is only about 55 weeks too late to the dance. Maybe if he will follow up on the dozens of tips that several of us have personally provided to the News & Observer, they will uncover the corruption in Durham County and City governments, the Police Department and the DAs office. Maybe they should go back and read the hundreds of threads, especially the one featuring C. Destine Couch.

[freeangel]

Let’s hope they can snag a few other rotten apples on federal charges for civil rights violations.

[Parley Baer]

Yep, there was a lot of misconduct in this case. Hopefully it won’t be swept under the rug.

[2harddrive]

Cases of Official Oppression like this are why we have a 2nd Amendment. Let’s all put it FIRST.

[Scotsman will be Free]

Sorry, that only applies to minorities. The lacrosse players are white. S/

[HANG THE EXPENSE]

Ya think?

[gcruse]

Wow. The police department belongs in the docket right beside Nifong.

[omnivore]

"...they did not pursue basic evidentiary trails to learn what happened at the lacrosse party."

That's because they were pursuing a Theory of the Case. Why bother looking at evidence, when you have a nice Theory to have fun with? The whole concept of "theory of the case" needs to be junked. Just stick with the provable facts and evidence, guys. If you don't think too good, don't think too much.

"The taxpayers are the next people to be burnt."

Good. They deserve it. When the "taxpayers" and "voters" support a government (police and DA) which is incompetent and does bad things, they deserve to suffer the consequences. Anything else is a shirking of their responsibility as citizens. I'm strongly in favor of lawsuits which crush the taxpayers with massive punitive damages when those taxpayers have bought and paid for the government which screwed up. If the taxpayers and voters have to pay big, really suffer, maybe next time they vote they'll think a little harder about picking somebody who's not an utter moron.

Since the Duke 3's lives have been ruined by the local government of Durham, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to win settlements which set them up very comfortably for life, at the expense of the "taxpayers" of Durham, who paid their government employees to do the ruination. You broke it, you bought it.

[Enterprise]

bump

[NonValueAdded]

Yah know, I can see how the Fong could hang this on Gottleib and crew, at least with the level of detail we're provided with in the article. "Of course I told them to show the 'victin' all 46 players ... they were the suspects. I did not think I had to micromanage a competent police force, though. Did I have to remind them of the photo id procedure? Little did I think they'd be incompetent enough not to mix those 46 players in with an appropriate number of fillers. Did it dawn on me to tell them how to do their job? No."

And you know what, while I think Nifong's hands are dirty up to his armpits on this, we'd better check the cops elbows too, if not their shoulders.

[umgud]

Don’t forget Knife-fong’s assistannts and other members of his office.

[HeartlandOfAmerica]

One has to wonder exactly where the Department of Justice was during all this and their eerie silence during this past year.

Didn't they shut down whole counties when blacks were being railroaded and wrongly convicted by corrupt judges and prosecutors?

It was known within a month of these persecutions that at least one of these players wasn't even in the place when the incident supposedly happened and there was ATM video to verify it.

It was known that this was a felonious prosecution from the git go. Where was DOJ?

[omnivore]

I think most of the feds at DOJ were assigned all 2006 to help out on the Scooter Libby travesty. That was the most important thing going on in the whole country.

[Northern Alliance]

Yah know, I can see how the Fong could hang this on Gottleib and crew, at least with the level of detail we're provided with in the article. "Of course I told them to show the 'victin' all 46 players ... they were the suspects. I did not think I had to micromanage a competent police force, though. Did I have to remind them of the photo id procedure? Little did I think they'd be incompetent enough not to mix those 46 players in with an appropriate number of fillers. Did it dawn on me to tell them how to do their job? No."

Yeah, I think you are on to something. Gottlieb is being set up as the fall guy, but with all the scrutiny that is going to be directed at just how this investigation was handled they will have a tough time making it stick.

[mo]

Unfortunately this all looks like a caricature of a corrupt backwoods Southern town.....about 1948.....the good people of Durham have a lot of manure shoveling to do there...including at the local university.

[rickdylan]

The people of Durham are not “good people”; they voted to return the Fong to office last November when the basic realities of this case were well known. They’re a bunch of racist clymers and they richly deserve what’s about to happen to them and their sorry excuse for a town. Wish any luck, aside from being sued into tomorrow-morrow land, they’ll get to see how much fun running the place’s economy will be without Duke University in it, after Duke moves.

[Sue Perkick]

So he’s going to finally crawl out from under his rock? I’m sure he has a logical explanation.

[Sue Perkick]

“COME GET SOME!”

[kalee]

Possible? I’d say probable would be more a accurate description.