Lacrosse committee chairman meets Durham officials
Published: Tue, Jul. 31, 2007 06:15PM
Modified Tue, Jul. 31, 2007 06:22PM
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closeThe chairman of the committee investigating the Durham Police Department's handling of the Duke lacrosse case met with Durham city and police officials today.
Willis P. Whichard said Durham police representatives have begun preparing responses to issues raised by the Duke lacrosse defense attorneys at the last committee meeting. The lacrosse attorneys had 13 topic areas and questions at the July 20 meeting that they wanted addressed.
The biggest question coming out of that first meeting was "Where was Chief Steve Chalmers when [former Durham District Attorney] Mike Nifong took over the investigation?"
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The 12-member panel was asked by the Durham City Council to do a third-party inquiry of the police's handling of the lacrosse case after Chamlers' report failed to answer all questions. The panel is made up of lawyers, law enforcement officers and a victim's advocate.
Whichard and Wade Barber,the committee's attorney, will prepare additional questions after examining documents from the case.
"We want to be as thorough in our review as possible, and the best use of everyone's time would be to use information that it already in the public domain to formulate questions for which answers are still needed," Whichard said in a statement.
The questions will be given to Durham City Attorney Henry Blinder and staff attorneys for the police department.
Barber said in a news release that once the questions are submitted, he and Whichard will set the new committee meeting date.
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