Duke lacrosse bathroom questions ( A repost)

Readers Note: The following post, "Duke lacrosse bathroom questions," was published on April 25, 2006, a week after Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann were arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail.

It was a time when both the Durham Herald Sun and Raleigh News & Observer were cheering on Nifong while Duke's Dick Brodhead, the school's president, was telling a Durham Chamber of Commerce meeting "whatever they did was bad enough."

I'm reposting now for two reasons: 1) to try to generate interest in finally forceing news organizations to give the public a good, full look at that bathroom; and 2) because I just read another statement by President Brodhead about how tough it was to figure out back then Nifong was lying about what happened.

The bathroom questions post makes clear how easy it was to realize the players and their families were victims of a vicious hoax followed by a frame-up. As my parents would have said, "All you need to know that is a little common sense."

A special hat tip goes to blogger Betsy Newmark, a Duke mom. She linked to the post and spoke out against the absurd falsehoods Nifong and others were spewing.

John
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"Duke lacrosse bathroom questions"

(Welcome visitors from Betsy's Page.)

The alleged victim says three men took her into the bathroom where they brutally raped and choked her. She says she tried hard to fight them off.

Questions:

Have you and someone else ever helped a cooperative elderly or very ill person into a bathroom to shower?

Didn’t you have to be extremely careful and move very slowly lest you accidentally injure the person or yourselves by hitting one of the hard, angular, and large objects found within a bathroom, particularly a smallish one?

In order to avoid serious injury to any of you, didn’t you carefully plan and coordinate with the person and your helper every move you all made within the bathroom?

Nonetheless, all the while you knew the smallest accidental slip or bump could result in injury, didn’t you?

Did you think about getting a third person to help?

Did you reject that idea because a third person would’ve made things too crowded and harder for everyone to maneuver safely around the shower/tub, toilet, sink, medicine cabinet and towel rack?

Have you ever been asked to help a person who would resist a shower, say an Alzheimers patient with paranoid ideation?

Did you try to help; or did you reject the idea as simply too dangerous to the person and everyone else involved?

Did you think instead of a bedroom where you could give the person a sponge bath?

That would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t it?

The papers report the house at 610 North Buchanan Blvd. has three bedrooms.