The State NAACP's Hypocrisy

“Despite being the author of a list of 82 ‘Crimes and Torts committed by Duke Lacrosse Team Players’ on the state NAACP’s news Web site, [NAACP legal redress committee lawyer Al] McSurely said he and the organization he represents have always advocated for the fair treatment of ‘both sides’.”
--Herald-Sun, today

Just what’s in that McSurely-authored memorandum, posted on the state NAACP’s website, that McSurely lauded as demonstrating the organization’s fairness to “both sides”:

• “The only Black [lacrosse] player, a freshman, left the party before the dancers arrived.” [This statement is untrue, as Devon Sherwood confirmed when he spoke with ABC; even Nifong had never made such a claim.]
• “The lacrosse team member asked the women to dance and simulate sex acts between them, similarly to scenes from a book and movie that several of the Lacrosse team members enjoyed reading and talking about—American Psycho.” [No evidence for either part of this assertion exists; Kim Roberts, certainly, has never made such a claim.]
• “After about three minutes of dancing . . . there were racial remarks made.” [No evidence for this assertion exists; indeed, Kim Roberts, both in her statement to police and in her interview with Ed Bradley, expressly denied the claim.]
• “Other men noticed Ms. M seemed quite vulnerable after drinking the clear liquid.” [No evidence exists that “Ms. M” drank any “clear liquid”—the statements of both Roberts and the captains held that “Ms. M” drank a rum and coke, which is not clear; and, of course, the tox screen on “Ms. M” was negative.]
• “Around 12:20, some men who saw the vulnerable Ms. M returning to the house called their friends who had taken cabs and gone to get some cash from an ATM. Some returned. Sometime between approximately 12:21 and 12:53, Ms. M has stated she was kidnapped into the bathroom, beaten, robbed, choked, and vaginally and anally raped.” [The memo, alas, was based on Nifong’s previous timeline and his old theory of the crime; the purpose of this item seemed to be to suggest that Reade Seligmann could be something other than demonstrably innocent.]
• “The Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) at Duke Hospital confirmed [the accuser’s] injuries matched her reports when she was examined about 2 hours later.” [As Nifong himself has now conceded, this assertion is wholly false, since neither physical nor forensic evidence exists of rape.]
• “Theresa Arico, the SANE coordinator at Duke Hospital said ‘there was a certain amount of blunt force trauma present to create injury’ and that the injuries the victim suffered were ‘consistent with the story she told.’ The ER doctor on duty that night also has reported that Ms. M. suffered trauma consistent with her story.” [Arico’s comments referred to a generic definition of “blunt force trauma,” not this specific case. No evidence exists that the ER doctor gave the statement that the NAACP claims.]
• “The three defendants they have two mountains to climb. First, they must deflect public attention from their boorish, racist, and illegal behavior by mounting outlandish attacks on the survivor and the D.A. Second, they must deal with a mountain of physical evidence, that is corroborated by, we have reason to believe, accounts of some of the men who were at the party who have cooperated with the police and the D.A. from early on.” [No evidence exists that any player provided statements to Nifong that told the story the D.A. wanted to hear.]
• “[Joseph] Neff apparently has complete access to the records Nifong has turned over to [Joseph] Cheshire, as long as Neff spins the story against the State.” [This claim is absurd; the NAACP exhibited no problems with the reporting of Neff when Neff worked to free a falsely imprisoned African-American, Howard Dudley.]

The above constitutes fairness to the lacrosse players, according to the North Carolina NAACP.