Readers Note:
Those of you who've followed the Addison Series posts know I recently sent Duke Univeristy Police Director Robert Dean a set of questions concerning Durham Police Corporal David Addison's production and distribution to DPD substations, media and others of the text of the Durham CrimeStoppers Duke lacrosse "Wanted" poster. Addison is assigned by DPD to serve as Durham CS's coordinator. (For additional backgroud, refer to this Liestoppers.com post which contains, among other items, a facsimile of the CS "Wanted" poster and links to the Addison Series posts.)
Following this note is a copy of my email to Director Dean; and following that is Director Dean's reply in full.
As I often do in this kind of circumstance, I'm posting Dean's reply without comment for a day so it can be read by you free of my commentary.
You're, of course, free to comment on the thread. The overwhelming majority of comments at JinC are civil, informed, and balanced. I look forward to reading those comments as do others who visit here. There may be a few comments that are otherwise. I'll delete them.
Please know I'm not forgetting the "Vigilante" poster. But for now I want to keep my focus on the "Wanted" poster. I'll be posting again on the "Vigilante" poster in a few days.
John
_____________________________________
LETTER TO DUPD DIRECTOR ROBERT DEAN
March 15, 2007
Robert H. Dean, Director
Duke University Police Department
Durham, North Carolina
Dear Director Dean:
I’m a Duke alum who blogs as John in Carolina.
I’ve posted frequently concerning the CrimeStoppers Duke lacrosse “Wanted” poster and the so-far anonymous “Vigilante” poster.
As you know, in late March and April 2006, both posters were widely circulated on campus and elsewhere in the community. False and inflammatory, they defamed and endangered the players most directly, but also put at greater risk others who might be the unintentional victims of unstable individuals and hate groups targeting the lacrosse players.
Since last May I’ve researched and published extensively concerning the production and distribution of both posters. (I link below to five posts concerning the posters. I’ll provide others if you wish.)
As Duke University Police Director you’ve had involvement with both posters. In this letter I want to ask you only about the CS “Wanted” poster and matters related to it.
I recently learned that, in addition to your duties as DU Police Director, you also serve as Chairman of the Board of Durham CrimeStoppers; and you held that position last March and April.
I’d like to ask you five questions, your answers to which I’ll share in full with my readers, who include many Duke alums, family and friends of the Duke students defamed and endangered by the posters, and Durham residents.
1) Were you aware on or before March 28 of the contents of the CS “Wanted” poster Durham Police Cpl. David Addison distributed on March 28? (A description of the poster, including the full text is the third document in this post.)
2) When you became aware of the “Wanted” poster, did you suggest to Cpl. Addison that he amend the poster? I’m thinking in particular of that part of the CS poster which told the Duke and Durham communities:
The victim was paid to dance at the residence located at 610 Buchanan. The Duke Lacrosse Team was hosting a party at the residence. The victim was sodomized, raped, assaulted and robbed. This horrific crime sent shock waves throughout our community.3) Did any senior Duke administrator seek you out last March or April and object to the content of the “Wanted” poster? If so, can you provide the name(s) of the person(s)?
4) DPD Major Lee Russ informs me that the position of DPD and Durham City regarding the CS "Wanted” poster is that they bear no responsibility for its production and distribution because Addison was acting under a blanket authority Durham CrimeStoppers’ board gave him to issue posters at his discretion. Is that also the position of Durham CS? If not, what is Durham CS’s position concerning the matter?
5) Have you posted a copy of IRS Form 990 for 2006 on the net or made other arrangements to make it easily available to the public as required?
Thank you in advance for your attention to this letter.
And thank you for your service to Durham CrimeStoppers. The Duke lacrosse “Wanted” poster aside, everything I know about Durham CS suggests it’s an effective organization that does much to protect the public.
Sincerely,
John in Carolina
Cc: Robert Steel, chair, board of trustees, D U
Richard Brodhead, president, DU
John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs and government relations, DU
Aaron Graves, associate vice president for campus safety and security, DU
David Jarmul, associate vice president of news and communications
Lee Russ, major, Office of the Chief, DPD
David Addison, corporal, Durham CrimeStoppers coordinator, DPD
______________________
Texts of Duke lacrosse poster documents
"Wanted" and "Vigilante;" Not the same
Addison Series #1 - "This horrific crime"
Addison Series #2 - "CrimeStoppers will pay cash"
Addison Series #5 - "Major Duke Involvement"
_________________________________________________
REPLY FROM DIRECTOR DEAN
Dear John in Carolina,
Here are the answers to your questions in the order that you posed them.
1. I recall seeing the poster (s) sometime during last spring, but I'm not certain of the exact date. My best recollection is that the poster had already been amended at the time I learned of the poster itself.
2. No. See response to No. 1 above.
3. Again, I believe that at the time I learned of the poster, it had already been amended. No senior Duke administrator sought me out to object to the content of the “Wanted” poster, but I suspect that senior administrators may not have been aware that I was then chair of Crimestoppers.
4. Corporal Addison has routinely issued posters related to information leading to the arrest of felony offenders. In my experience, these were not ordinarily cleared with the Crimestoppers board or the Durham Police Department.
5. I stepped down as chairman this past December. Mr. Pat Ellis succeeded me as chairman and could give you that information.
cc: Bob Steel
Dick Brodhead
John Burness
Aaron Graves
David Jarmul
Lee Russ, DPD
David Addison, DPD
Robert H. Dean Jr.
Director, Duke University Police Department
20 comments:
Yeah, it is something like: "Gambling? Here? I'm shocked! SHOCKED!!
It always is amazing to see just how no one wants to be accountable. Apparently, Dean Sue and Mr. Dean had no objections last year to the posters. Now, they tell us that their origins were a mystery.
MacD says...
So the DPD has said that Addison's poster was not authorized by them. CS has said that Addison's poster was not authorized them.
Someone helped Addison write it and walk him through 3 revisions.
I believe CS. I think someone in the DPD or the DA's office contributed to the poster.
Hmmm, in my Giant Corporation you only CC people at that rate when you're preparing a defense in depth via a paper trail.
The subpoenas should return some amazing stuff.
I think we should call on the Dukeies to follow the lead of the white house and make their email archives public so that we can see that there is no conspiracy.
-AC
The most amazing thing about David Addison and his role in producing the slanderous "Wanted Poster" - shortly after all became known regarding the published false statements, damn if the Durham City "Council Member Woodard presented Corporal David Addison with the outstanding Public
Servant of North Carolina award."
(http://www.durhamnc.gov/agendas/minutes/cc_minutes_06_05_06.pdf)
Only in the City of Durham!! Amazing, JUST AMAZING!!
I am not reading a great deal of shock in this response.
If he is just now learning that the wanted poster he saw last spring was an 'amended' version, he is lacking a bit of the distaste to the original that I had when I first read it.
There was a man in Durham
charged with duties to ensure 'em
that he would be on top
of all the doings of the shop
he performed so weakly
that he answered only meekly
Information he should have known
he says he was not shown
until too late
to stop the hate
As a top cop from the cop shop
he was totally a flop.
No one took the ride
to the other side
of the narrow mean River Styxx
else he would be in a helluva fix
**********************************
Which only goes to prove as Jr. Williams of Asheville,NC used to say on many a fortuitous occassion, "If you got luck, s*** will do for brains". DPD, Nifong, DUPD, CS, Duke admin. must be peopled by the "luckiest" s.o.b.'s in North Carolina.
I'm a trial attorney and Dean's letter was writen by one.
CrimeStoppers performs the following functions:
1. Selects crimes (alleged crimes) to publicize.
2. Publicizes the selected crimes, e.g. with posters offering rewards for information.
3. Collects money to be used for rewards.
4. Disburses money.
In the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, we know that DPD Cpl. Addison was responsible for #2.
To my knowledge, there is no information on #1: who selected this crime for CS publicity?
To my knowledge, there is no information on CS's standard operating procedures. The Durham PD and CS Directors seem to have disavowed any knowledge of SOPs concerning #1 and #2.
-- What are CS's SOPs for selecting crimes to publicize? Are the selection criteria written? Is the identity or the title of the selector written? Are there any supervisory provisions?
-- What are CS's SOPs for publicizing crimes? Again, are they written procedures? Whether oral or written, who does the publicizer report to?
-- Were Durham CS's SOPs (if any) followed in the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case?
-- For comparison with how SOPs on points #1 and #2 are handled, what are Durham CS's SOPs for #3 and #4? Are there any oral or written SOPs on collecting and disbursing money by people acting on behalf of CrimeStoppers?
So far, it appears that CrimeStoppers is an non-profit organization in which nobody knows anything about what the standard procedures are, much less about how they should have been, or were, applied in the Lacrosse Rape Case.
(Although the funds being handled are far more modest, my daughter's Brownie troop seems to have much stricter standards than Durham Crimestoppers.)
Are there no written SOPs for handling potentially damaging and libelous information? That would be remarkable.
Are there also no written SOPs for handling substantial sums of money and disbursing them confidentially? That would be even more astonishing.
But if there are SOPs for handling CS funds, it's hard to imagine that it never occured to the writers that procedures are needed for selecting and handling criminal cases, as well.
Is Durham CS in compliance with the national organization's standards on these matters?
What company provides liability coverage to Durham CS and its directors? Did Durham CS somehow find a company that would blindly offer insurance without vetting CS's policies on these matters? Again--remarkable.
As other posters have readily identified, this is a "non-response" response.
He is obviously under orders from an attorney (which means he must be guilty, right?) to answer questions as narrowly as possible.
It seems clear that some "sunshine" needs to be shed on this board and their activities.
Does anyone have an example of any other CS poster that have been displayed in public? I'm curious as to whether it is SOP for a CS poster to contain such loaded verbage as "This horrific crime sent shock waves throughout our community [emphasis added] or refer to an accuser as a "victim" without the appropriate "alleged" being included (there's that rush to judgment thing again!). In other words, is Addison universally inept in his duties or did he simply lose his head in this one case in his zeal to come to the aid of Precious, Damsel in Distress?
Either way, has the CS BofD given any thought to considering that Cpl. Addison may not be qualified to be the sole person responsible for creating and distributing CS posters? From Dean's response, it appears Cpl. Addison has a free rein to run the show as it relates to posters as he sees fit. Perhaps some oversight by a responsible adult of the corporal's activities is warranted. In that case, let's stipulate from the outset that members of the Durham Police Dept. are not qualified to supervise and need not apply.
Finally, it might be worthwhile to explore what CS's liability would be had, as JinC makes reference to, someone who was so incensed by the language of the Wanted Poster that s/he physically harmed either a LAX player or an innocent bystander. Where would Dean, as head of the BofD last March and April, be standing today in such a case? My guess is he wouldn't be feeling as blasé about the situation as his response here indicates. I couldn't help but feel that Dean was trying not to yawn as he wrote it.
I think he gave straightforward, direct answers to the questions, and is to be commended for doing so.
Bring on the civil suits. A federal investigation is needed. Perhaps Congressman Jones would offer ideas of what ordinary citizens should do to end this travesty of justice and stop the North Carolina corruption.
Commended for what?
It only took him a year to say anything and only when directly questioned. He was really helpful in getting himself out of the way.
I will point out once again that a crimestoppers and/or wanted poster are for use when the alleged perpetrators are not known, or if known, there whereabouts are not known.
Neither of these conditions apply to either of these posters.
There was no justification for either poster. No shucking and jiving, no racial sensitivity, no political correctness can justify the dissemination of either poster as all alleged perpetrators were known and all were available to the police department and the prosecutor. And most importantly, all were cooperating with the investigation.
Both posters were criminal in intent and effect. It is imperative that all, ALL, repeat ALL, parties involved in the making of these posters be tried for their crimes and spend some serious time in prison with people who have reason to hate falsifiers of public record and culpatory evidence.
Let's see how well Nifong, Addison, Gottlieb, et al hold up to living with their criminal brethren. And perhaps their incarcerated non-criminal victims who had suffered a similar fate, but had not the wherewithal to fight back effectively.
I am the Duke lacrosse parent , who demanded at the 25 March Parents Meeting, that Dean Sue and Joe Alleva remove the roster{photos,names,personnel data} from the goduke.com internet site. This meeting was called by Duke Admin. after they cancelled the Georgetown lacrosse game at 11:45 a.m. 25 March 2006. The first comment as the meeting began at approx. 12:15 p.m. was by me "demanding Duke remove the web site access immediately" this was for safety reasons. That was Saturday and the web data was not removed until Monday , 27 March.
A well-drafted letter to Duke Police Director Dean led to a civil response, then to some perceptive comments, above.
I wonder if there is a rape case "X" that Cpl. Addison publicized for Durham CrimeStoppers in the recent past, but prior to March, 2006.
In Case X:
-- Who recommended the case to CS? How did CS take it on? (Did Cpl. Addison have to get an "okay" from anyone?)
-- Were there any written SOPs that Cpl. Addison followed in preparing publicity material, or in deciding the amount of the cash reward to be offered? Did anybody else review or approve Addison's actions?
Knowing what "normal" procedures at Durham CS are like would help put the organization's actions in the early stages of the Hoax in context.
My personal working theory would be that Durham CS does have SOPs, and that at the behest of certain individuals, Cpl. Addison disregarded them to expedite production and distribution of the "Wanted" poster.
It may be noteworthy that the members of the Durham CS Board "hid in plain sight" for nearly a year post-Hoax. Nobody lied and said, "No, I'm not a Board member." Neither did Dean Sue, Robert Dean, or anybody come forward and volunteer, "Yes, I'm affiliated with CS." They waited to be discovered--unusual behavior for a community service organization's directors, it would seem.
cedarford; thank you for making my point better than I did. I was not talking about defamation, I was talking about a conspiracy to commit crimes under color of law for personal political gain. You surely don't think withholding of evidence, lying publicly about suspects, intimidating witnesses, thwarting discovery, committing perjury, and other untruthful acts and statements were legal. The posters were part of the conspiracy to strengthen the credibility of the conspirators. As such, they were criminal acts.
"Defamation is a civil tort, not a crime. It will not end up netting someone a jail sentence, it will never even see the inside of a criminal court ["unless the defamation was part of a larger conspiracy where actual criminal laws were broken"]
Exactly. You have made my point. Surely you are not trying to say Nifong and his abettors committed no crimes. Are you? Do you really think there are not criminal statutes against what was done?
As a matter of law, you can look it up, a criminal conspiracy is in and of itself a felony. Even if the conspiracy was to only commit a misdemeanor or tort. I don't necessarily believe it appropriate in all cases, but there you have it.
If you had just said you were a lawyer and didn't think it appropriate that the conspirators, all of whom are police or elected officials, be subjected to the same laws and charges as any of us would be under identical circumstances it would have rung truer. Because I know you don't think the posters weren't part of the fraud Nifong was committing.
Which libelous poster did the N&O publish, and has Melanie Sill explained why the newspaper published it?
See KC Johnson's important post:
More CrimeStoppers
I spoke yesterday with two members of the Durham CrimeStoppers board, Dean Sue Wasiolek and Dan Hill. They gave me details of the group’s monthly meeting, which was devoted solely to the issue of last spring’s “wanted” poster in the lacrosse case. (Dean Sue had asked that the issue be placed on the agenda.) Cpl. David Addison, the Durham Police liaison to the CS board, was out of town on a previously scheduled matter; Major Lee Russ briefed the board.
Russ reported the sequence of events as follows:
1) On March 28, 2006 (four days after Mike Nifong, improperly, assumed personal command of the police investigation; and after a weekend in which Addison, serving as DPD interim spokesperson, made a series of comments about the case that proved either misleading or outright false), Addison sent out an e-mail to various list-servs with which he deals. The e-mail read:
On Monday, March 13, 2006 about 11:00pm, the Duke University Lacrosse Team solicited a local escort service for entertainment. The victim was paid to dance at the residence located at 610 Buchanan. The Duke Lacrosse Team was hosting a party at the residence. The victim was sodomized, raped, assaulted and robbed. This horrific crime sent shock waves throughout our community.
Hill and Dean Sue reported that while Addison had used such rhetoric in previous high-profile crimes, he clearly was “overzealous” in the wording of this e-mail.
2) Soon thereafter, a district commander of the Durham Police heard that an anti-lacrosse protest was going to occur outside 610 N. Buchanan. For reasons that are unclear, he decided to create a flyer to distribute at the rally. That poster is scanned here; it was produced on the stationery not of CrimeStoppers but of the Durham Police Department. Addison did not create the document; though it used the wording of his e-mail and contained a notice asking people to contact CrimeStoppers, it was, technically, a Police flyer.
If it was, as it appears, really a POLICE flyer printed on DPD stationery....they might just as well offer to settle right now. Fighting the suit will only mean they'll wind up paying legal costs...for both sides.
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