Stomping on America

Duke neighbors tell their story

Newsday: Two men who live next door to the shabby rental where Duke University lacrosse players allegedly raped and beat an exotic dancer said yesterday that the athletes had been drinking and behaving boorishly hours before the incident, and that one player shouted a racially charged insult at the woman as she sped off.

Forty-six of the nationally ranked team's 47 players have submitted DNA samples to police about the March 13 incident. Fourteen members of the team are from Long Island. No criminal charges have been filed.

According to court papers, three lacrosse players trapped the dancer in a bathroom of the house, held her legs apart and physically assaulted her for 30 minutes with punches, kicks and choking. Within minutes of getting away, police said, the woman was driven to a nearby supermarket where an employee called 911.

The one player who was not asked to submit a DNA sample is also the team's only black member, and from Long Island. The victim told police her abusers were white.

The accuser was one of two exotic dancers hired by the team for a party. According to reports, both women are black, and the allegations have reopened racial tensions in this college town.

On a school Web site, team captains apologized for the party but denied the accusations.

The neighbor, Jason Bissey, told Newsday yesterday that he did not know what transpired inside the house, but in its front yard and side driveway he saw and heard a series of tense exchanges between the two women and a group of up to 30 lacrosse players.

Bissey, 26, and his roommate, Derek Anderson, 23, who are not Duke students, said the women hurriedly jumped into a car to leave. Bissey said one young man then made his way across the street to the so-called "Duke wall" that rings part of the campus, shouted a sexist slur, then "Thank your grandpa for my nice cotton shirt."

Oh yeah, there's no racism in American society today. Minorities are overly-sensitive, they blow things out of proportion and rabble-rousers are just trying to push their political agenda; if only we'd stop dividing everyone by color and if only the media stopped sensationalizing these things everything would be fine.

Sheesh. Duke's historically had an image as an exclusive, white bastion of spoiled, elitist, arrogant jerks. It's an image that's been exemplified by its basketball team; captured best perhaps by the 1992 incident where Christian Laettner stomped on the chest of a Kentucky player as he lay on the floor.

All Laettner got was a technical foul; as the Times reported the next day, Mike Krzyzewski said he'd be surprised if the NCAA suspended him, as it had suspended a player who'd elbowed Laettner in the head a year earlier.

Curious to see if the Duke administration continues to circle the wagon around its lacrosse players, or if they respond with more than a slap on the wrist. It may not matter, in any case, as ESPN reports:

Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, lead investigator in the alleged rape case involving the Duke men's lacrosse team, said Thursday that he expects to file charges including first-degree forcible rape, first-degree kidnapping, and first-degree sexual offense, if the case can be made based on the gathered evidence.

A conviction on those charges could result in a minimum prison sentence of 16 to 20 years. Nifong's office is investigating allegations made by an exotic dancer who was hired to perform at a private team party on March 13.

"Under North Carolina law, the only felony more serious than that is first-degree murder," Nifong told ESPN's George Smith. "These crimes are actually punishable at a higher level than second-degree murder. ...

Prosecutors asked the entire team to contribute DNA samples. When some declined on the advice of attorneys they hired, Nifong said he sought the court order for samples from all but the team's lone black member. The woman, a black student at nearby North Carolina Central, has said her attackers were white.

The case has prompted daily protests since Saturday, including a small student rally Thursday morning, intensifying the undercurrents of privilege and race in a blue-collar city of 200,000 that is 44 percent black while home to one of the nation's elite universities.

"I guess one of the best ways to describe this is we have the potential for a perfect storm," North Carolina Central chancellor James Ammons said. "You have all of these issues that we're going to have to discuss."

The discussion so far, at least, seems to be driven by the national media. ESPN.com continues its recent trend of hard-hitting journalism on issues beyond sports with Greg Garber's exemplary article, Turbulent times for Duke and Durham. There's a lot in there--some of the quotes are pretty ugly, most of them are thoughtful with an underlying current of either anger, or sadness. Let's give Garber the last word.

On Wednesday night this week, a caller to WUNC's public radio program, "The State of Things," said that Duke treats the town like a plantation.

"That captures it," said Neal, who was a guest on the show. "Durham residents have been looking for a moment like this to address their concerns. This was sort of the last straw. The fact that the university responded at all, I think, was due to that push-back."

Betty Greene, a Durham resident for 10 years, lived in New Haven, Conn., for more than a decade. She said she believes the relationship between Durham and Duke is far more fractured than that of Yale University and its Connecticut city.

"Last weekend was Duke's minority recruitment," Greene said. "What a welcome for minority students to walk into this story. I'm trying not to call it racial terrorism, but that's really what it is." ...

One Central student, who asked not to be named, wondered on Thursday what would have happened if Central's basketball team -- of which 16 of 17 players are black--had been accused of a similar crime against a white woman.

"Somebody," the student said, "would be in jail."

Photo of flyer distributed at the "Take Back the Night" march on the Duke University campus asking people to come forward with any information about a recent sexual attack (the flyer notes that no one pictured is being directly accused) by Chuck Liddy/The Raleigh News & Observer, via Newsday.