Duke lacrosse: Waiting for police “arrangements?”

(This post was completed at 2 p.m. EDT Tuesday, July 25,)

It’s now more than 100 hours since an alleged assault by Durham police officers just before midnight last Thursday in the parking lot of a Raleigh sports bar.

And guess what? I can’t find a single local news organization that’s publicly complaining about the Raleigh City Police delay in completing and making public the incident report. I also can't find a local news organization that's asking: "Why the delay?"

As I pointed out in a post Sunday, it’s standard practice for police to prepare an incident report on the scene or within a few hours of the incident, and then make the report available to media and other interested parties.

One media person I spoke with just before Noon reported hearing from other media people that Raleigh police finally made a report available this morning. The person had not seen it but said those who have say it “didn’t say much.”

If the report is now finally available, will media ask why it took so long to prepare? And why it doesn’t contain “much,” if in fact that’s the case.

Usually police are eager to file an incident report. It helps with further investigation and protects the officer(s) at the scene from later recriminations and/ or law suits.

Usually when police delay an incident report, especially for days, it’s because as one police Captain told me years ago, “It can take time to get a story arranged.”

Moving on –

Five days after the incident, the public hasn’t been told how many Durham officers were involved in the incident. Surely the Durham Police know how many were involved? And surely the Raleigh Police do, too. So why aren’t we being told? Why aren’t media demanding the answer?

Why would the police not tell us?

Well, for one thing, if the police have a little flexibility on the number involved, it makes it easier to “arrange” things, doesn’t it?

One more item -

WRAL reports today:

No charges have been filed as part of the assault investigation, and a Raleigh police spokesman did not return calls on Monday to The Associated Press seeking comment.

[Durham police Deputy Chief R.H.]Hodge said Durham's internal affairs unit also planned to investigate Thomas' complaint, but had not yet interviewed all the Durham officers involved.

"We saw no need to get in front of Raleigh's criminal investigation," Hodge said.

Durham’s internal affairs unit has “not yet interviewed all the Durham officers involved?”

Well, has the unit interviewed some or at least one of the officers involved?

And just what does "We saw no need to get in front of Raleigh's criminal investigation" mean?

We’ve been told the Raleigh Police criminal investigation and the Durham Police internal affairs investigation are two separate investigations. We’ve been told they’re so separate that information from the Durham investigation can’t be shared with Raleigh Police.

So why the delay in launching a Durham internal affairs investigation?

Does a delay serve any purpose other than to give time for things to be “arranged” during the Raleigh investigation so that when the Durham investigation is launched, everyone involved knows what the “arrangements” are?

But our local media aren’t asking questions about “arrangements.”

It’s some media we have here in Durham.

An 18 year old with an open beer can? “Hey, get his name. Hold three columns on page one. I’m doing a backgrounder.”

Police “arrangements?” “We’ll take whatever you give us, Officer. And by the way, about that little fender-bender I was involved in last night. The accident report says ...”