Monday, August 27, 2007

News from Little Bighorn

The bad news kept pouring in today as two more local news sources reported the potential of massive lawsuits against the City of Durham. Councilman Eugene Brown said it best;

“I think after a while the city may end up feeling like General Custer at Little Bighorn,” councilman Eugene Brown said.“He looks around and, to paraphrase, says, ‘Where in the [heck] are all these lawyers coming from?’” News-Observer

The News-Observer continued;

DURHAM - The spectre of massive civil lawsuits has put the future of a special committee probing the police’s handling of the Duke lacrosse case in limbo.

The city’s insurance provider advised last week that continued investigation by the panel could provide ammunition for a civil lawsuit, Mayor Bill Bell confirmed Monday.

Falsely accused Duke lacrosse players David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann have hired powerful attorneys in anticipation of suing the city.

Seligmann has retained Barry Scheck, a prominent New York City lawyer whose high profile clients include O.J. Simpson and British nanny Louise Woodard. Evans and Finnerty have hired Brendan Sullivan Jr. and Chris Manning of Washington D.C.

The former players’ attorneys will meet with City Attorney Henry Blinder and other legal advisers next week.

Based on the outcome of those meetings, City Council members then will decide whether to allow the committee to continue or to suspend their activities indefinitely, Bell said.

“The nut of it is they’re suggesting we might want to stop right now,” he said...
Newsobserver


The now awake Snooze Room continued with this troublesome information for the City;

Barber, Falcone and Whichard also met last week with the prosecutors from Cooper's office, Jim Coman and Mary Winstead, who did the leg work that shaped the attorney general's decision to exonerate the players. The four-hour session "answered some questions but raised others" about the case, Whichard said. The special prosecutors have "got a whole room with documents, charts and files," Whichard said. "They expressed willingness to be available to us further if we need them to be." Herald-Sun

So it appears a full investigation into the conduct of the Durham PD and City Officials might create problems for the City of Durham and its Insurance Carrier.

LieStoppers wants to commend Council Brown for his honesty in this manner. We are reminded of his prophetic remarks in his open letter of May 31, 2007;

"One basic question is why did three Durham residents have to go to Raleigh and to the Attorney General's office to get justice?".."It's really an embarrassment that we're going through this and that we have to do this process," Brown said. "It's painful, but the truth is sometimes painful, and it needs to come out."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Little Bighorn LOL!

Nobody could be as dumb as Durham!

Anonymous said...

Want to bet some bigwig at Duke BOT owns the insurance company?

Anonymous said...

Its probably an underestimation to say...durham may be in a lot of finacial trouble.

Anonymous said...

This whole affair is just mind numbing. The citizens of Durham are going to pay for the actions of their employees.

City Manger Baker should be fired!

The Buck stopped at his desk! Hay, maybe that's the problem, too many bucks stopping at his desk!

Mandelbrot's Chaos said...

The insurance company has to know at this point that Durham's facing the most unwinnable civil rights case at least in the last decade. I can't quite see how anything any committee, special prosecutor, or interested party can possibly increase the city's liability, unless the cover-up is perpetuated even further.

Anonymous said...

The purpose of the commission is to clean up Durham so that these things do not continue occuring. It is terrible how all from the President of Duke, the administration, the Durham PD, and the media, and now, the insurance company have conspired to thwart justice for the people of Durham . . . what frauds . . . is there no civic pride in these educated elites? Have they no sense of decency? Have they no honor? Is there no leadership in Durham? What country have you seceded to become? Is there no civic virtue or public veritas? Are you afraid? Do you not believe in the rule of law? What kind of people are you?