Nifong Gets Shunned by Duke Students for and Ethical Durham

[inmyhumbleopinion]

Quote from: Sensei

The ultimate in bad manner is to make demeaning statements about a specific group and then in front of the cameras attempt to bully them into a situation which would appear to all the world as if they were mutually respectful, when the LAST thing anyone can accuse Nifong of is being respectful to the Students.


Good point but save your breath. Anyone that doesn't realize the "prosecution side" is the side with bad manners is either a leprechchaun an idiot or just doesn't know good manners.

Ahhhh...someone didn't eat their Frosted Lucky Charms this morning....

[rd248]

The dislike and prejudice that IMHO seems to have for Duke students in general, and those in particular that come from the Northeast (which by the way is less than 20% of Duke students) seems to be quite typical of a certain group of "activists" in the Trinity Park neighborhood.  (I don't know if he or she is from there or not, but I have seen  these sentiments on other boards and usually that is the motivation for all the dislike)  Some of them don't seem to have any appreciation of the advantages of having a great University in their midst, and the financial benefit that they receive because of that.    Their major concern seems to be noise violations and people peeing on bushes.  They are happy to see these boys indicted for rape, just because they are representative to them of the type of kids that might have peed on their bushes. Nothing else really matters.  They don't seem to realize that without Duke, Durham would be just a crappy crime ridden drug infested little town with a corrupt DA and police department.  And nobody outside of Durham would care at all. 

Duke was there 100 years before these people moved into their little neighborhood, and it will be there 100 years after they are gone.  If the University had been a little wiser, it would have bought up the whole area that surrounds East many years ago and had a buffer zone of off campus housing and a Collegetown area like many other Universities do.   This  would have prevented the development of this hostile neighborhood directly adjacent to the University.  Apparently this neighborhood wields an outrageous amount of political power, judging by their success at getting the Police to mistreat and jail Duke students for minor violations. 

Duke is the single biggest employer in Durham.  Without that employment, it would be hard to imagine how downtrodden the city would be.  The development and money put into 9th street has a lot to do with East Campus students and people that visit the University spending money there.   They are building a hotel in Trinity Park which will provide more jobs and tax support.  Do those people think they would be doing that if Duke wasn't there?

My suggestion would be for Duke to gradually phase out East Campus completely, and to build new buildings and dorms that are contiguous with West Campus, and move away from that section of Durham entirely.  Why support an area of the town that gives them nothing back except grief.    It's not an easy task, but in the long run I think the University would be better off. It's an unusual setup to begin with to have two separate campuses anyway, and the older dorms on East are really antiquated.  Then when that area is phased out, we'll see how much money and development are interested in going in there.  The businesses would collapse, and the place will go back to being the dump it was 20 years ago.  Then they can continue to vote for corrupt jerks like Nifong without any interference from the "yankee Duke students".

[Neanderthal]

My suggestion would be for Duke to gradually phase out East Campus completely, and to build new buildings and dorms that are contiguous with West Campus, and move away from that section of Durham entirely.

Move a little further west, and they could relocate to Texas. . . (just a thought. . .)

[rd248]

Well Neanderthal, I hadn't thought about that.
It's a little further West than I was thinking.  LOL  I've only been to Texas twice, but I do know one thing about Texas... they take a great deal of pride in their Universities, both public and private.  Everything there is state of the art.
Especially the Medical Centers. 

[inmyhumbleopinion]

The dislike and prejudice that IMHO seems to have for Duke students in general, and those in particular that come from the Northeast (which by the way is less than 20% of Duke students) seems to be quite typical of a certain group of "activists" in the Trinity Park neighborhood.  (I don't know if he or she is from there or not, but I have seen  these sentiments on other boards and usually that is the motivation for all the dislike)  Some of them don't seem to have any appreciation of the advantages of having a great University in their midst, and the financial benefit that they receive because of that.    Their major concern seems to be noise violations and people peeing on bushes.  They are happy to see these boys indicted for rape, just because they are representative to them of the type of kids that might have peed on their bushes. Nothing else really matters.  They don't seem to realize that without Duke, Durham would be just a crappy crime ridden drug infested little town with a corrupt DA and police department.  And nobody outside of Durham would care at all. 

Duke was there 100 years before these people moved into their little neighborhood, and it will be there 100 years after they are gone.  If the University had been a little wiser, it would have bought up the whole area that surrounds East many years ago and had a buffer zone of off campus housing and a Collegetown area like many other Universities do.   This  would have prevented the development of this hostile neighborhood directly adjacent to the University.  Apparently this neighborhood wields an outrageous amount of political power, judging by their success at getting the Police to mistreat and jail Duke students for minor violations. 

Duke is the single biggest employer in Durham.  Without that employment, it would be hard to imagine how downtrodden the city would be.  The development and money put into 9th street has a lot to do with East Campus students and people that visit the University spending money there.   They are building a hotel in Trinity Park which will provide more jobs and tax support.  Do those people think they would be doing that if Duke wasn't there?

My suggestion would be for Duke to gradually phase out East Campus completely, and to build new buildings and dorms that are contiguous with West Campus, and move away from that section of Durham entirely.  Why support an area of the town that gives them nothing back except grief.    It's not an easy task, but in the long run I think the University would be better off. It's an unusual setup to begin with to have two separate campuses anyway, and the older dorms on East are really antiquated.  Then when that area is phased out, we'll see how much money and development are interested in going in there.  The businesses would collapse, and the place will go back to being the dump it was 20 years ago.  Then they can continue to vote for corrupt jerks like Nifong without any interference from the "yankee Duke students".

Sure seems like it would be a lot easier to just get the Duke students to act civilzed when they go off campus.

[rd248]

Maybe hiring a landscaper to fix the bushes would be easier.
It will also be less expensive than paying your share of the massive settlements that are inevitable from Durham and the DPD.

[inmyhumbleopinion]

Sure seems like it would be a lot easier to just get the Duke students to act civilzed when they go off campus.

What is your solution? Sending them to prison for 30 years for crimes they did not commit?
That will teach them.

If that happens it will teach them to seek better legal advice, because that outcome could not be worse.  So far, Ekstrand's "don't answer any questions" and his employee's "hide your face" advice hasn't worked out for them.

[inmyhumbleopinion]

Maybe hiring a landscaper to fix the bushes would be easier.
It will also be less expensive than paying your share of the massive settlements that are inevitable from Durham and the DPD.

One would think getting adults to not vomit and urinate in the other people's gardens would be easier than relandscaping, but maybe not....

I wouldn't take those settlement checks to the bank just yet.

[emmy954]

Well, the Trinity Park residents have the vomiting and urinating, and the rest of Durham has the gang bangers, durg dealers,  and prostitutes...and that great DPD sure does know how to tackle the *really* big problems, like those damn urinators...screw the big problems, like the gangs and drug dealers and the prostitutes...

[Marie]

College students tend to be loud and they like to drink. For alot of people this is the first time they are out of Mom and Dad's orbit and they act up accordingly. No curfew, plenty of people to socialize with, available beer no further away then the nearest frat house - I know I thought I had found paradise. At every campus I've been on it's the same story. I went to a well known university in Los Angeles and the students were loud and liked to drink. Same story at our cross-town rival. I had friends who went to Arizona State, UC-Santa Barbara, Stanford - same story. If you are anywhere near the "student sections" of these schools you better brace yourself for noise and Animal House behavior. College students will never be mistaken for Mary Poppins.

[khartoum]

Of course. Do we know what they usually do to identify suspects/witnesses when 44 out of 47 potential witnesses to a crime decline to speak to police investigators? They should follow that procedure.

I haven't seen anything published that the five-filler photo rule doesn't apply when there are 44 suspects. Could you point me to a cite? Or is this just a "safe bet," like Bennett's connection with DSED?

[Mr X]

Maybe hiring a landscaper to fix the bushes would be easier.
It will also be less expensive than paying your share of the massive settlements that are inevitable from Durham and the DPD.

One would think getting adults to not vomit and urinate in the other people's gardens would be easier than relandscaping, but maybe not....

I wouldn't take those settlement checks to the bank just yet.

peeing on the shrubs !!! wow, this was the stuff of ctv months ago. the Nifongistas are now reduced once again to the bad neighbors bull  LOL. Vote Nifong, support illicit sex trade in Durham.

[Marie]

College students tend to be loud and they like to drink. For alot of people this is the first time they are out of Mom and Dad's orbit and they act up accordingly. No curfew, plenty of people to socialize with, available beer no further away then the nearest frat house - I know I thought I had found paradise. At every campus I've been on it's the same story. I went to a well known university in Los Angeles and the students were loud and liked to drink. Same story at our cross-town rival. I had friends who went to Arizona State, UC-Santa Barbara, Stanford - same story. If you are anywhere near the "student sections" of these schools you better brace yourself for noise and Animal House behavior. College students will never be mistaken for Mary Poppins.

Unfortunately it's true. So, it's hard to understand why people that can't tolerate that sort of thing continue to live next to University campuses.

I don't understand it either. When my boyfriend came out to UCLA for med school he thought he was going to get a great deal on an apartment in Westwood but it turned out it was right in the middle of the undergrad student "party zone". Since he was now in med school and needed some peace and quiet he rented somewhere else.

[Sensei]

There is nothing in the rules on fillers not being needed if there are multiple suspects. The rules also do not meniton anything about giving a witness a line up after line up of the same people until she finally picks someone.

Are "guidelines" mandatory? I don't actually understand that concept. I understand the concept of "laws" being mandatory, but guidelines, where I come from, are simply recommended procedures.

The idea that suspects have a "right" to fillers seems not to have been established yet. Perhaps this judge will make a landmark decision on the matter, but I doubt it.

The Guidelines were written at the request of the North Carolina Judiciary, the stated purpose of the guidelines was to lessen the incidence of wrongful conviction, and to help the Police departments have a sound and legally sufficient method, so that eyewitness identifications are less vulnerable to challege in Court.

The suspects do not have a "right" to fillers, but  the lack of following the guidelines which were adopted for the State of North Carolina has made this particular Identification, especially vulnerable to challenge by the Defense Attorneys since it was not conducted in the approved manner and is very likely to be overturned by the Judiciary on that basis.

The guidelines had a two fold purpose, to protect the innocent from mistaken identification and also to protect the properly conducted identification from legal challenge by the Defense Attorney....
This identificatio obviously failed on both counts

http://www.law.duke.edu/innocencecenter/causes_and_remedies.html

[Johnny Sack]

Here we go again.

We have 3 people acused of rape yet it all goes back to pissing in the bushes. If the D/A simpily charged someone with pissing in the bushes then there would have been a plea and this farce case could have been nipped in the bud.

The headline would read.

Nabbing bushes pissers wins D/A local election. On another note two people were injured Friday in a shooting at a Durham Target department store near The Streets At Southpoint Mall. ...