This time, rape case gets muted reaction

Another off-campus party in Durham gives rise to serious allegations, but no uproar

DURHAM -- To bloggers and avid followers of the sexual assault case against former Duke lacrosse players, the protesters are known as "the potbangers."

They clanked their kitchenware in protest outside 610 N. Buchanan St. last March after an escort service dancer alleged being sexually assaulted at a lacrosse team party there.

Now there are new sexual assault allegations from another off-campus Duke party, and avid chroniclers of the twists and turns in the lacrosse case ask: "Where are the potbangers?"

"That's a good question," said Manju Rajendran, one of the organizers of the potbanger protests. "Why is there not a massive reaction every time a rape occurs? I feel like that should happen any time there's rape."

Some say the city is fatigued by the lacrosse case and people might be treading carefully because of the controversy and criticisms lobbed from near and far.

"Normally with a rape case, police do the investigation, and charges are filed, and it goes through court," said Orin Starn, a Duke professor who has been critical of big-time college sports programs. "The lacrosse case was something of an anomaly. It became a media event that was covered and dissected and debated, both locally and nationally."

The two cases have similarities: In each, the accuser says she was sexually assaulted in a bathroom at an off-campus Duke party.

But they are significantly different, too.

The accuser in the lacrosse case alleged gang rape.

That led to 46 players being ordered in to a police lab for DNA testing, and District Attorney Mike Nifong and other law enforcement officials alleged that the team was stonewalling the investigation.

"I started out being outraged by the lacrosse players," said Ned Kennington, a Durham resident who was one of the protesters. "I'm pretty outraged with Nifong at this point.

"The district attorney, who we believed was acting in a very thoughtful and deliberate fashion, told us that a terrible injustice had been done, and there was this stonewall of silence. We trusted him, and we were wrong."

Racial slurs were uttered as the accuser and another escort dancer left the Buchanan Street house early on March 14, 2006. And many in the neighborhood were at their wits' end with rowdy Duke students who had displayed increasingly recalcitrant and mocking attitudes, urinating on neighbors' houses, throwing beer bottles on lawns and blasting music at all hours.

That was the context in which the allegations of gang rape came forward nearly 11 months ago. That the accuser was a single mother of two who said she was trying to work her way through college tugged at heartstrings.

Disillusionment

As the months wore on, the accuser's story changed, and so did the tenor of a city wrapped up in a sexual assault case that had captured the attention of a nation ready to be judge and jury.

There have been torrents of criticism about the merits of allegations by the accuser and about a district attorney whose behavior raised questions about his integrity and about whether he withheld crucial evidence from the defense.

Bloggers, who have chronicled the details on Web sites, take delight in blasting "the potbangers" and the so-called "Group of 88" at Duke, professors who endorsed a student newspaper ad that deplored racism and sexual assault on campus.

Some of the most dedicated have posted MTV-style videos with captions and music. One of the more telling accounts captures the protesters marching down Buchanan Street in a simple video that was posted on YouTube.

In that video, the protesters call Duke Provost Peter Lange outside his house across the street from the hip-high stone wall rimming Duke's East Campus.