Duke lacrosse: H-S OK's Gottlieb as Duke "assumes" and questions swirl

The Raleigh N&O and Duke’s student paper, The Chronicle, have reported for days on arrest records and other actions of Durham Police Sgt. Mark Gottlieb that raise serious questions about his possible abuse of police powers, particularly regarding his treatment of Duke students.

During that time, Bob Ashley’s Durham Herald Sun's been silent. But today, that changed. The H-S spoke out and informed readers :

"Cop who arrested students doing job"

That’s certainly a strong, clear statement, isn’t it? Makes you wonder why anyone’s been asking questions about Gottlieb.

If you're a fan of "Gottlieb/Nifong justice," you might want to thank Bob Ashley for his editorial.

Don't do that because “Cop who arrested students doing job” is the H-S’s front-page headline for what Ashley wants readers to believe is really a news story.

Now let’s look at some other things that reveal “Cop ... doing job” is an editorial/opinion piece and not a straight news story.

The H-S reports Gottlieb’s supervisor, [Capt. Ed] Sarvis :

added that the pressure to make arrests came from him, and that Gottlieb's fellow squad leaders in District 2 were just as aggressive about responding to it, even if their efforts didn't show up in their personal arrest statistics.

The H-S then describes a series of explanations Sarvis offered for various arrests, We’re clearly supposed to come to the end of the series believing :“It’s all OK, folks. There’s nothing to see here. Move on.”

But wait!

The H-S reporter, Ray Gronberg, never says he, Gronberg, saw any of the arrest records from the past year he reports Sarvis explained. Not one!

Gronberg doesn’t even say whether Sarvis had the arrest records before him as he was explaining them or whether, like Sgt. Gottlieb with his investigative notes, Sarvis relied on a very remarkable memory.

But that kind of information belongs in a news story.

The H-S piece offers readers no information about the frequency and circumstances in which Gottlieb’s cuffed Duke students.

As I said before, decent police officers, of whom there are many on the Durham Police force, try if at all possible to avoid cuffing for many reasons; not least because a cuffed person is much more vulnerable to injury; for instance, by tripping on a sidewalk.

The H-S apparently made no effort to independently check anything in Gottlieb’s background and relied entirely on what Capt. Sarvis offered. Or if the H-S editorial team did some independent checking, it decided not to tell us.

In an editorial, journalists can pretty much say whatever they like.

But if the H-S ever decides to do a straight news story on Sgt. Gottlieb’s treatment of Duke students and other citizens, I hope it does some independent digging going back through Gottlieb’s 15 year career.

The H-S piece offers no hint that what Sarvis says Durham Police did and, I assume, are still doing - singling out from among the general citizenry a class of citizens (Duke students) for differential arrest and other police treatment - may violate the Duke students’ right to equal protection under the law even if they live in Trinity Park.

Aren’t police when they, for instance, stop a Duke student for drunk driving supposed to treat the student the same as they would a Trinity Park pot banger?

For that matter, if police come upon a Duke student and a pot banger who are both violating Durham’s noise ordinance, aren’t the police supposed to treat the two the same, disregarding that one’s a Dukie and the other a prominent Trinity Park resident and enthusiastic supporter of DA Mike Nifong?

No defense attorney, civil rights advocate or victims’ rights advocate is quoted in the H-S piece.

At the end of today’s “Cop (just) doing job” story we find this:

Duke spokesman John Burness said the university had been aware of the Durham Police Department's zero-tolerance policy, and said administrators would be concerned if there was evidence Gottlieb "was being disproportionate."

"It'd be a matter for the police and the city manager to look at now that it's been brought to their attention, to see if there are patterns that are inappropriate," Burness said. "If there are, we assume they'd take appropriate action."

As far as I know, Burness’ statement is the first regarding Gottlieb’s record and the concerns it's raised.

If I’m reading it correctly and the H-S is quoting him accurately, Burness’ statement amounts to:

Duke trusts the Durham Police Department to investigate this matter. The university sees no need to do anything else.

I'm sending Burness an email this evening to ask him some questions regarding a number of matters, including his statement as noted by the H-S, making a point to ask whether I've summarized it correctly.
I'll be back on this story tomorrow.