It would appear that the Duke lacrosse team could very well be innocent of accusation of rape by the stripper who is a student at NCCU. LaShawn Barber has a great piece on it.
There were only 2 options in this case. Either the lacrosse team gang raped a stripper or she was lying about it. We were asked not to take her prior bad acts (stealing a car and leading police on a chase 2 years ago) into account. I know I didn't, but the case did not rely on that. They simply have no proof she was raped by any of the white players (the only black player did not have his DNA tested). She appeared to be under the influence when she arrived and spent 20 minutes in the bathroom before the "attack" took place. The real kicker was the photos that were taken with a digital camera. The pictures are time stamped and show the "victim" smiling after the "attack" took place. Also the pictures taken before she claimed she was attacked show bruising as if she had been roughed up or taken a hard tumble.
With all this in mind, it makes me wonder. A big part of the black community wanted to string up the players before any facts were uncovered. Very few (mostly conservatives) waited until they knew more info before they commented.
We do not need crap like this muddying up the waters of our society. What was her motivation? There has been speculation that a BLACK boyfriend or client raped her before hand and was afraid to speak up and figured the white boys at Duke would be easier targets. Now that is just speculation..we have no proof of that, but WHY would she accuse the lacrosse team?
2 comments:
I haven't been following the case too closely, but I have picked up on bits & pieces. Things never added up in the first place.
* The alleged victim's story changed at least once in the early days, as I recall.
* I don't care if the alleged victim says it was a white kid(s) who attacked her - you test everyone's DNA who was there. I find it suspicious that the only person who wasn't tested was black. One could put together a scenario where she did have sex with someone, maybe even someone at the party, and then engineered a way to get that person's DNA not tested. Result: it looks like she's been raped, but none of the DNA matches.
* Experts in the field expected to find DNA evidence where there was none.
It is still possible that she's telling the truth. I don't want to dismiss her allegations completely until all the facts are in. But in the eyes of the law, the lacrosse team is innocent until proven guilty. If the DA thinks he has a case, let him press charges. Bring the evidence to court, bring testimony to court, and let a jury decide - if the judge doesn't throw the case out, that is.
DNA really would be the best way to determine the situation, and if she had in fact been gang-raped, there'd be at least some shred of evidence left behind. One or two people doing it, maybe it could be covered up. But even that would require a condom, and no trace of that was found either.
Unless she showered and scrubbed down immediately afterward, in which case she's destroyed her own best evidence. Granted, she wouldn't be in the best state of mind, but that'd be pretty extreme.
In a town hall meeting yesterday I believe, residents wanted the whole team arrested for this crime even though there was no physical evidence that it had happened AND the team had been involved.
If skin colors or sexes were reversed, this would be classified as a hate crime, there would be riots going on, every politician within 500 miles would be all over the TV for it, every media outlet would be spending 18 hours/day discussing it ad nauseum, it would be a complete circus. But because it's "rich white boys" who stand accused, no one's going to leap to their defense unless they're a relative or in a similar socioeconomic situation.
If, in fact, the alleged victim fabricated everything, I hope she's prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Not only for making a false claim, but for doing it on racial lines by accusing the white players only - couldn't that be classified as a "hate crime" (which is one of the dumbest things I've heard in the last 15 years, BTW)?
Rape is an ugly thing. A man simply being accused of it, even if the authorities aren't brought in, is a severe black mark on his "social record" and his psyche. It is not something to be taken lightly - in any context. If you're going to accuse someone of it, you had better be telling the truth.
I'd love to see the truth (the REAL truth) come out of all this, but I don't think we'll ever know for sure.
Oh, to answer your final question: "WHY would she accuse the lacrosse team?"
You mean if she was indeed raped but not by the lacrosse team? I can think of plenty of reasons:
*More publicity/attention
*Afraid of retribution - what happens to her if the person who really did it is fingered, and comes back at her or her family with more severe intentions?
*Take down "rich white boys" (as I understand it, there's a good bit of tension along race & class lines in that city)
*A shot at a big-money settlement from
*Ashamed to admit the truth, so by drawing the attention to who did it, it diverts the attention from her
Saw on SportCenter this morning that the staff who examined the accuser at the hopsital have stated that she defintiely was attacked that night - but she didn't say by whom when she was in the hospital, and she was not acting sanely at all - ranting, raving, acting wild, just completely out of hand. Sounded like she may have been on drugs.
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