Police Report: Accuser Said 20 Raped Her

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

(05/09/06 -- DURHAM) (WTVD) -- Duke police officials released a report Tuesday night indicating that the accuser in the lacrosse rape investigation changed her story.

A Duke committee released a report Monday saying that Durham police sent mixed messages in the early hours of the lacrosse investigation. It said that police initially told administrators that the accuser was not credible and initially said 20 men had raped her. She later said three had raped her.

Durham City Manager Patrick Baker told Eyewitness News earlier Tuesday that he had never heard that she claimed 20 men had raped her.

But Duke police released a copy late Tuesday of its report from the morning after the March 14 party.

"The female was picked up at the Kroger on Hillsborough Rd., and she was claiming that she was raped by approximately 20 white males at 610 N. Buchanan Street," the report says.

"The victim changed her story several times, and eventually Durham Police stated that charged would not exceed misdemeanor simple assault against the occupants of 610 N. Buchanan," the report later states.

The report says Duke officials did not take the case seriously because Durham police officers said it would blow over.

Baker is standing behind the city's police officers, saying the Duke officer who wrote the report got secondhand information.

"He did not have a conversation with our officer," Baker said in a telephone interview Tuesday night. "He did not have a conversation with the victim. He prepared his report based on conversations he overheard and the context of that conversation."

Baker said the Duke officer overheard a conversation between a Durham police officer and the watch commander.

Earlier in the day, Baker told Eyewitness News that there was confusion in the early hours of the investigation, but Durham police were on the the case later in the morning.

"We had launched a full-scale sexual assault investigation by 4 or 5 that morning," he said. "It just doesn't make sense that a week later anybody thinks that the Durham Police Department isn't taking the case seriously or that it would blow over."

Baker says the Duke committee contacted no one in the Durham Police Department to verify the information.

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