That's Entertainment
Larry Moneta, Duke's VP for Student Affairs, in an interview with ABC was asked about the difference between the art show and the lacrosse team's hosting strippers, he said, "one served the purpose of personal gratification and the other had educational value." ABC
Now that we all have stopped laughing over that justification for Duke Administration's hypocrisy let's see what the reviewers said.
From the Huntsville's Entertainment reporter reviewing the Jan 31 "art performance" in Huntsville we have.
Let's talk about...
by Jon Busdeker
Friday February 01, 2008, 11:49 AM
If you are the type of person that sends emails, calls or writes letters complaining, please stop reading now. What happened last night was X-rated.
I'll keep in mind community standards, if you keep in mind that art is like beauty: it's in the eye of the beholder.
With that said, what follows is a recap of last night's adventure at the Flying Monkey Arts Center.
The Sex Workers' Art Show strolled into town and a packed crowd looked on as sex industry workers did their thing.
There was nudity, bad words and lots of debauchery or....a perfect Thursday night.
I had seats front and center (a perk when you're a reporter) and had no idea what to expect.
The show started with a modestly dressed woman with bright red hair explaining what we, a crowd of about 200, should to expect.
The show, according to the program, "is an eye-popping evening of visual and performance art created by people who work in the sex industry to dispel the myth that they are anything short of artists, innovators and geniuses."
The first performer, Kirk Read, was dressed in a sleeveless, pink, leopard-print shirt, a frilly belt and black pin-stripped pants. His face was painted like the Ultimate Warrior.
Read, whose memoir "How I Learned to Snap" chronicles his life as an openly gay man in a small Virginia town, told a story about his hippie friends in a California park.
The reading was about as risque as a cup of coffee. But that was OK, because the next performance got things going.
Dirty Martini (Miss Exotic World 2004) proceeded to do a striptease, but her face was covered. As she took off each piece of clothing, the crowd looked on. I guess I never thought she would strip all the way down. She did and I'm naive.
Although her body was totally exposed, she never showed her face.
That's deep.
The night wore on and I saw a busty woman shake a martini with her assets, a porn star read a piece of fiction, a skinny black man strip down and throw glitter around and a former stripper climb a pole. (The stripper once worked at a club in Ypsilanti, Mich. called Deja Vu. I grew up near there.)
The highlight of the evening involved a Vietnamese dominatrix and an audience member.
Keva Lee, dressed in a bustier, strategically placed electrical tape and stiletto boots, walked on stage with the audience member, who had a dog collar around her neck.
After a few words in Cantonese and a brief job description, Lee got on with her performance.
It was X-rated. Trust me.
By the end of Lee's performance, I was glad I didn't volunteer.
The show ended with fireworks, but you're going to have to ask someone who was in attendance about that performance.
It was X-rated.
Trust me. AL.com
A Second Opinon
Just so Larry has a second opinon the local progressive Independent Weekly chimed in.
Valentine's Day came early to Durham when the Sex Workers' Art Show arrived with an invitation of libidinous promise.
Competing with Super Bowl Sunday for viewers, the Web site teased with blurbs advertising the winner of the "Bishop Award for Best Tit-Tortured Model 2005," and a "blonde bombshell" who can "mix martinis with her cleavage." As it turned out, anyone expecting an actual sex show, or for that matter a first-rate art performance, would come away disappointed; but there was sex and art enough in equal measure to keep a large, randy crowd thoroughly beguiled.
The touring show, now in its sixth year, has provoked questions about the proper limits of sexual content in college-sponsored entertainment. At Duke, it received funding from a variety of sources, such as Healthy Devils, the Women's Studies Department and Students for Choice. This would seem to imply some sort of educational mission, but the acts were never didactic and didn't advocate an agenda. The main goal, it seemed, was to entertain. IndyWeekly
41 comments:
Larry you have made a fool out of yourself and out of Duke.
The Sex Workers Art Show is nothing more than "Travelling Hotties" with a clever business manager.
Someone smart has figured out that you can be well paid to put on a strip show on a college campus if someone reads a poem between acts.
According to Ken Larrey of DSED, Mr. Brodhead refused to read the promotional flyer describing what was really in the show. Mr. Larrey had to read it to him. (think ostrich with head in the sand).
Mr. Moneta calls this "art". Did he see the show?
If Larry Moneta actually believes this is "art", he has no standards and should not be allowed a position of responsibily to educate our children.
If he does not believe this is art, but is just afraid to say so, he is intellectually dishonest and should not be allowed a position of responsibility to educate our children.
Which is it?
Jim Peterson
A lengthy excerpt from the Duke performance of the SWAS has made it to You Tube. It is labelled, "The Duke Sex Show", and is one of the most popular hits.
Hundreds of thousands of viewers are watching the excerpt from "The Duke Sex Show" of a dominatrix masterbating an oversize rubber penis while her "pet", an audience member, kneels on the floor beside her.
Makes you proud, doesn't it?
Jim Peterson
Do these people have any sense of shame whatsoever for what they put these boys through, and for the rank hypocrisy they are now displaying in attacking their free speech rights while parading the "rights" of these prostitutes? No, of course they don't.
That's why people like this belong in JAIL. They need to be paying DAMAGES.
Is Moneta just dense? Everyone who sees that clip knows it pure trash. It isn't even a close call.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgF8e8rdmPA
That is what the VP of Duke thinks is art!!!
Of course, Larry Moneta is dense---
remember his 'water buffalo" fiasco?
Question should be: Is DUKE BOT so dense?
Duke SWAS (sex show) -- live and well on YouTube.
LARRY MONETO (sp intential)
NEEDS TO GO GO
AND SPINELESS DICK
SHOULD FOLLOW QUICK
It's enough to make an alumna puke. And that's not art. Just pure nausea at what those fools who have commandeered my university call "Art".
Art, whether a Warhohl or a DaVinci, is usually considered to have some redeeming value.
This is just pure porn with a clever booking agent.
The fact that Moneta, Brodhead, and Steel can't tell the difference disqualifies them for the academic world. They all need to go find jobs somewhere in the fantasy worlds.
They're going to law school to become prosecutors?
what else is more shocking, this is so typicle duhham,
wait till cline gets her claws in you aint seen nothing yet
"a variety of sex toys, massagers, oils, lubricants and other fun supplies!" A person with a sparkler coming out their butt, a woman masturbating with a dildo? What is the matter with Duke University?
No one is trying to be a prude but this is trash. Is this the leadership Duke is providing? YES! That's the sad fact.
What else is going on in departments that isn't so sexually shocking but is a degradation of knowledge? If this goes on so openly it's what's happening behind doors that needs to be investigated.
Jim in San Diego (at 12:21) makes an interesting point about Brodhead. It seems every time Brodhead is confronted with a difficult situation, he simply refuses to be informed about it. He did it when dean at Yale, he did it with the lacrosse team, and he has done it again with the sex show (which apparently violated Duke's own rules instituted after the lacrosse incident). I must conclude that Brodhead is a true deconstructionist. He interprets the world the way he wants to interpret it, not the way it really is.
Jack in Silver Spring
http://www.childtrafficking.org/cgi-bin/ct/main_news.sql?file=news.sql&VIEW=All
read this
wow, you guys are soooo funny! i can't believe you're still talking about this. is there NOTHING else going on in your town? and for all of you who say it's a shame and that duke is going downhill, please know that this show was just performed on the HARVARD campus a few days ago and with none of the "OMG! we're all going to hell!" attitude i see here.
Wow, even the Indy refused to give them much air cover. That speaks volumes.
This is a reply to tommy c. at 10:46 AM.
Part of the reason this entire matter is of interest to me is what I consider to be the hypocrisy of the "Liberals" on this issue. Recall, after some members of the lacrosse team were accused by Crystal Magnum of rape, many on the "Liberals" at Duke passed judgment without evidence. (Sounds like the old South, except the sides have changed.) Then the Administration misled the team members about their rights, allowed student-unfriendly Durham police to investigate the case, allowed to Nifong to have Federally protected evidence and then refused to even be presented with evidence exculpating the three indicted students. Finally, in the wake of the lacrosse case, the Administration made a rule forbidding any group to hire strippers. (Harvard, to date, has done note of that.)
With all that having happened, the Administration then lamely excuses the hiring of strippers because it is "educational."
Like all so-called "Liberals," the Administration's members will consider something to be beyond the pale when someone of whom they do not approve does something to discomfort them (as in "Whatever they did was bad enough"). When, though, someone of whom they do approve does the very same thing (and whose intentions they consider to be pure) then it's OK. To me, that is rank hypocrisy.
Jack in Silver Spring
its all to divert attention from dumab ass liberals who are to stupid to listen to what i have been saying. its all done for a reason to make you not see what the university is doing behind closed doors and the city all knows about it but nobody is looking into the blackmarket of trafficking drugs, body parts, children for sex and organs and you name the crime, the cops are behind it with alot of companies and banks to make money to
why else does the goverment and companies give a shit about this one stupid place? it is a pitstop and major people behind it all
"(Sounds like the old South, except the sides have changed.)" That says it all.
So glad to see Tommy Crotch is still posting.
check and see who crystals family is. look in to her back ground and see what is keeping her so protected by the whole system. ask who is she, who she knows, what she knows, and how much to make her talk. its all politics all of it
No, it's not politics at all. The system covers up for false accusers all the time; the only thing unusual about this case is that it was exposed. Prosecutors always maintain that defendents were guilty no matter how thoroughly they're cleared. The entire US prosecutorial profession is corrupt.
Crystal and her family are poor, black and uneducated folk. She is not protected from the system. A fine of 500 dollars is the penalty for making a false rape accussation - not worth the time or trouble to persue her. See the posters are not happy with RCD for not suing her - she has nothing. As much as folk want to make this a frame, it just ain't.
For someone who obviously never reads the news, you write surprisingly well.
Crystal Mangum framed these boys, so that she could get the attention that she doesn't merit. She has been lying about being raped for her entire life. She is a serial false accuser and deserves to spend the rest of her miserable life in the smallest, grimiest cell available.
Those of you who support her are the moral equivalents of rapists and child molesters.
check into her arrests and who she is close to it is alot bigger than her she is just a pawn to be silent
She's been doing this stuff her whole life. This was deliberate. She wanted attention and she wanted to get paid.
Why does our system allow scum like Mangum to go free? Are we this poisoned by socialism and political correctness that we're going to rationalize these heinous acts?
If these boys had been black and poor they would be rotting in prison as we speak, and everyone would just assume they were guilty.
its politics she knows what they dont want us to know. follow the money and see who invests money here. who rents the hud houses are they by cops with there own agendas? you keep barking the wrong tree, crystal was just a tool they used to win an election nifong did not think it would end this way and is still going to practice law again. billions are made and banked in our banks and all over from the profits of their crimes. spy on lopez funeral homes cops immigrants. theres lots of moles out here and lots of people that watch to see what will be told
No, Crystal wasn't the tool. The US criminal justice system is the tool for that lying whore and hundreds of other false rape accusers.
ask the department of justice, house of representives, dow, glaxosmithcline, worldbank, morgan stanley and all the corporations with billions invested to keep whores like crystal to get attention so they can carry on with there dirty deals. yes it is politics and money
Think it wold be good to publish another picture of not attractive, fat Crystal. None of the above would fool around with her. She is not the gal pictured for the SWS. Although, I think the team expected they would be getting Gyspy Rose Lee,
it just so happened to be a whore with contacts, wakeup ass it happens everyday. why else wont she talk? she is being silent for very good reasons money and her life
She has been silent since the one and only interview shortly after the incident. This is not new. I do not believe she has any high or even low power contacts at all. Last I read, she did not live in North Carolina.
are you realy that stupid or are you nifong?
This has nothing to do with Morgan Stanley. This is about a corrupt criminal justice system with no effective safeguards against abuse.
Imagine if any moron could set his own house on fire and file an insurance claim, and be believed even if he'd already been caught setting other houses on fire! That's the way the system works in relation to false rape accusers.
Criminals like Crystal Mangum make up story after story about rape, and are either taken seriously or have their behavior covered up. They are given a free pass to do it again.
Often they are rewarded with money and attention, not to mention the feeling of power and revenge that comes from falsely imprisoning an innocent man.
There are no safeguards in place to prevent false accusers from abusing the legal system. The system, in combination with the news media, works only to create the illusion of credibility, so that any pathological liar can have innocent men sent to prison.
This is Nazi Germany and these are show trials, as relates to false accusations of rape.
the entire power structure exists on money made black market, and the numerous companies and goverment people who watch this site knows it to. they are watching to see what we know and who is going to come out and tell what the hell is really going on.
Read these with a warning they are not pornographic, but more visual to see for yourself and all you people watching to do something!
warning very graphic adult only
http://www.gnn.tv/threads/13788/Concentration_Camp_for_Organ_Harve
st
here are more truths and all you have to do is use google and find out just what is going on and by our own government is shocking
http://www.heuni.fi/uploads/66hiqubodt0rb.pdf
http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/11533
durham is just one pitstop in the world chain
Since the Duke sex show was educational, does that mean the LAX team were only doing homework?
What is the big shock here? The families have every right to sue the city for negligence of an entire political system that failed miserably! This is by far NOT the biggest case to be media worthy, but one that has brought to the light of day a sample of what people in power do every single day and nobody even knows or cares!
Well, I am here to tell the WORLD and every entity watching, that As God is my witness I will not go to my grave without speaking out about the same system that has not only covered over my beloved brother's murder, but have mocked us, threatened us, and continue to deny us the right to know not just how my brother died, but everything that was done and NOT done!
I have contacted EVERY person their is imaginable, excluding the President, and still have been denied not just documents, but the right of a family to know how their loved one met their death, and to know what was done, and not done to his body!
We have been lied to and threatened by the Durham Sheriff's Department, have been shuffled through 3 years and 3 District Attorneys, countless complaints filed to numerous governmental agencies, even our own Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and STILL NOTHING!
We have sent our documents that we have been able to glean from the system to Mr Ekstrand, but due to his obligation to the LAX team is unable to represent us but would if he could! I have sent him, the FBI, and several others copies of the BLUE blood coming from an entrance wound, none from 2 exits wounds, a inconclusive and actually negative GSR screen, proof of fraud and collaborative deception, and have been to hell and back in this maddening chase to expose this city and system for allowing crimes against humanity to go unannounced, while innocent people suffer from the hands of the very powers who took oaths before God and man to protect and serve!
So, here my family and I are coming forward to beg the media to help us to solve my brother's death, and expose a system of debauchery and evils that not only baffle the mind, but leaves you breathless and speechless! I have tried and done all that I can alone, and now have 2 months before the state can be held liable for not just one mans death, but expose a system that feeds off the helpless, then leaves them for dead!
So, in closing I will say the purpose of this letter now on this thread is to also gain attention to the enumerable failures within the system, to right a countless injustice done to a plethora of lives that have been left completely devastated, and to make our government be held responsible and accountable for FAILING us the citizens, and the dead who have no voice but scream beyond their graves! The truth is worse than a nightmare because it is REAL and more HORRIFIC than you could ever have imagined!
Never could I have guessed such wickedness by not just individuals, but extremely organized and calculated, and failed by the very country and leaders we so blindly put our hopes and faith into! My heart bleeds for the truth, and mourns those who have been so wickedly tortured! My brother and countless others did NOT die in vain, and I will be damned if I will let fear keep me from Justice For Jack, but JUSTICE For ALL!
Rhonda Fleming
Cleveland, Ohio
Sister of Allen Jackson Croft Jr, Murdered May 11, 2005
For legal reference please refer to Mr Ekstrand for personal contact
Robert C. Ekstrand
Firm: Ekstrand & Ekstrand
Address: 811 Ninth Street, Suite 260
Durham, NC 27705
Phone: (919) 416-4590
Fax: (919) 416-4591
Imagine instead, your child or loved one MURDERED, and not only does it take Law Enforcement over a YEAR to send ONE single report, they LIE to you from the beginning, and not only REFUSE to do any investigating, but fail to adhere to ANY role of conduct and protocol, then threaten you and LAUGH at you?!
Yes, I have the utmost sympathy for the team, but let us not forget just how many OTHER cases have been corrupted by the exact same system! WHAT has been done to answer and solve the murders of my brother, Janet Araboa, and Michelle Young?! What voices have they now they are dead?!
Where is the outrage, and public and media attention for our families?! Nifong is by far the only knave on the long list of miscreant marauders who care nothing about rights of citizens, and care only for what is in "their" best interest! Wake up people and ask why the Department of Justice has not intervened, and why do our nations leaders just watch and do nothing about an abjectly corrupt and politically ran city?!
I never would have imagined what I now know, and am sick that nobody has taken our pleas, and heard our cries! Our loved ones not just dead, but murdered, and we will never see them hear them, or feel their touch ever again! Unfair?! Unjust?! Impossible?! The cesspool of corruption flows deep into a murky quagmire of wickedness that should expose our own government for allowing it to continue!
True and REAL crimes against humanity ranging from organized crime and drugs, to kidnapping, slavery, prostitution, and murders for global sale of body parts! Google human trafficking in organs, and learn exactly what is going on behind closed doors "the powers that be" never want to see opened! The reality is not only horrific and unimaginable, it IS happening every single day across the world, and Durham is just one of the many links in this chain of the grisly, dark underworld!
I have fought for nearly 3 years to restore my beloved best friend's respect, and JUSTICE he, and all of the others desperately deserve, and will never quit until something is done and things are changed! NOBODY deserves what mine and countless other families have endured, and for us I am begging the people and media to make a difference and care about all of the other serious matters that have fallen to the wayside for needless years!
Rhonda Fleming
Cleveland Ohio
Sister of Allen Jackson Croft Jr, murdered May 11, 2005 in Durham NC
STILL praying for "JUSTICE!"
Imagine instead, your child or loved one MURDERED, and not only does it take Law Enforcement over a YEAR to send ONE single report, they LIE to you from the beginning, and not only REFUSE to do any investigating, but fail to adhere to ANY role of conduct and protocol, then threaten you and LAUGH at you?!
Yes, I have the utmost sympathy for the team, but let us not forget just how many OTHER cases have been corrupted by the exact same system! WHAT has been done to answer and solve the murders of my brother, Janet Araboa, and Michelle Young?! What voices have they now they are dead?!
Where is the outrage, and public and media attention for our families?! Nifong is by far the only knave on the long list of miscreant marauders who care nothing about rights of citizens, and care only for what is in "their" best interest! Wake up people and ask why the Department of Justice has not intervened, and why do our nations leaders just watch and do nothing about an abjectly corrupt and politically ran city?!
I never would have imagined what I now know, and am sick that nobody has taken our pleas, and heard our cries! Our loved ones not just dead, but murdered, and we will never see them hear them, or feel their touch ever again! Unfair?! Unjust?! Impossible?! The cesspool of corruption flows deep into a murky quagmire of wickedness that should expose our own government for allowing it to continue!
True and REAL crimes against humanity ranging from organized crime and drugs, to kidnapping, slavery, prostitution, and murders for global sale of body parts! Google human trafficking in organs, and learn exactly what is going on behind closed doors "the powers that be" never want to see opened! The reality is not only horrific and unimaginable, it IS happening every single day across the world, and Durham is just one of the many links in this chain of the grisly, dark underworld!
My name is Rhonda Fleming, and I am writing this letter and posting it on every news and blog site possible, to seek recognition, aid, and to educate the masses to the unfathomable abuses and crimes that are allowed to be continued without ANY help from our government concerning the murder of my brother in Durham, North Carolina in 2005, and many other crimes involving a very long list of injustices committed by Law Enforcement, and not just in the Carolina's.
The media and world have focused too much attention to this one case, as countless other cases have been completely left at the wayside! During the three years I have spent gathering evidence that they have completely ignored, have made numerous official requests and complaints to countless officials in NC, and Washington DC, all to no avail.
The focus is on one case by a city that is totally corrupt, yet the Department Of Justice, Administrative Office Of The Courts, Congress and many other official legislative, and judicial branches sits idly by, watches and does nothing!
The lawsuit made by the Duke LAX team will shed a bit of light onto the deliberate attempt and conspiracy of many, to care less about the lives, laws, and rights of citizens, and instead use them and us as political pawns on their nefarious road to perdition.
What is the big shock here? The families have every right to sue the city for negligence of an entire political system that failed miserably! This is by far NOT the biggest case to be media worthy, but one that has brought to the light of day a sample of what people in power do every single day and nobody even knows or cares!
Well, I am here to tell the WORLD and every entity watching, that As God is my witness I will not go to my grave without speaking out about the same system that has not only covered over my beloved brother's murder, but have mocked us, threatened us, and continue to deny us the right to know not just how my brother died, but everything that was done and NOT done!
I have contacted EVERY person their is imaginable, excluding the President, and still have been denied not just documents, but the right of a family to know how their loved one met their death, and to know what was done, and not done to his body!
We have been lied to and threatened by the Durham Sheriff's Department, have been shuffled through 3 years and 3 District Attorneys, countless complaints filed to numerous governmental agencies, even our own Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and STILL NOTHING!
We have sent our documents that we have been able to glean from the system to Mr. Ekstrand, but due to his obligation to the LAX team is unable to represent us but would if he could. I have sent him, the FBI, and several others copies of the BLUE blood coming from an entrance wound, none from 2 exits wounds, a inconclusive and actually negative GSR screen, proof of fraud and collaborative deception, and have been to hell and back in this maddening chase to expose this city and system for allowing crimes against humanity to go unannounced, while innocent people suffer from the hands of the very powers who took oaths before God and man to protect and serve!
So, here my family and I are coming forward to beg the media to help us to solve my brother's death, and expose a system of debauchery and evils that not only baffle the mind, but leaves you breathless and speechless! I have tried and done all that I can alone, and now have 2 months before the state can be held liable for not just one mans death, but expose a system that feeds off the helpless, then leaves them for dead!
So, I will say the purpose of this letter now is to also gain attention to the enumerable failures within the system, to right a countless injustice done to a plethora of lives that have been left completely devastated, and to make our government be held responsible and accountable for FAILING us the citizens, and the dead who have no voice but scream beyond their graves! The truth is worse than a nightmare because it is REAL and more HORRIFIC than you could ever
have imagined!
Never could I have guessed such wickedness by not just individuals, but extremely organized and calculated, and failed by the very country and leaders we so blindly put our hopes and faith into! My heart bleeds for the truth, and mourns those who have been so wickedly tortured! My brother and countless others did NOT die in vain, and I will be damned if I will let fear keep me from Justice For Jack, but JUSTICE For ALL!
Imagine instead, your child or loved one MURDERED, and not only does it take Law Enforcement over a YEAR to send ONE single report, they LIE to you from the beginning, and not only REFUSE to do any investigating, but fail to adhere to ANY role of conduct and protocol, then threaten you and LAUGH at you?!
Yes, I have the utmost sympathy for the team, but let us not forget just how many OTHER cases have been corrupted by the exact same system! WHAT has been done to answer and solve the murders of my brother, Janet Araboa, and Michelle Young?! What voices have they now they are dead?!
Where is the outrage, and public and media attention for our families?!
Nifong is by far the only knave on the long list of miscreant marauders who care nothing about rights of citizens, and care only for what is in "their" best interest! Wake up people and ask why the Department of Justice has not intervened, and why do our nations leaders just watch and do nothing about an abjectly corrupt and politically ran city?!
I never would have imagined what I now know, and am sick that nobody has taken our pleas, and heard our cries! Our loved ones not just dead, but murdered, and we will never see them hear them, or feel their touch ever again! Unfair?! Unjust?! Impossible?! The cesspool of corruption flows deep into a murky quagmire of wickedness that should expose our own government for allowing it to continue!
True and REAL crimes against humanity ranging from organized crime and drugs, to kidnapping, slavery, prostitution, and murders for global sale of body parts! Google human trafficking in organs, and learn exactly what is going on behind closed doors "the powers that be" never want to see opened! The reality is not only horrific and unimaginable, it IS happening every single day across the world, and Durham is just one of the many links in this chain of the grisly, dark underworld!
I have fought for nearly 3 years to restore my beloved brother, and best friend's respect, and JUSTICE he, and all of the others desperately deserve, and will never quit until something is done and things are changed! NOBODY deserves what mine and countless other families have endured, and for us I am begging the people and media to make a difference and care about all of the other serious matters that have fallen to the wayside for needless years!
Where IS the SBI report on my brother? Where is the details of what was done to his body and organs after he was killed? What was done to investigate his death? What was done to provide the family with documents and reports we should not just have public access to, but to every iota of information, as they closed his death as a "suicide" yet did no autopsy and lied they did?
What was done to my brother is so horrifically twisted and unreal that the city has gone out of it's way to not only deny him an investigation, but to hide facts, alter reports, and fail to adhere to any semblance of protocol?!
Where is the OUTRAGE for our family and others of unsolved and purposely neglected murders, just from 2005?!
Does anybody out here give a damn for us?!
Something MUST be done, and I have come forward to beg the media and government to hear what I have to say about my brother's case, and the crimes being done to many innocent victims that MUST be acknowledged, reported, investigated, and DESERVE action and resolution!
To contact me directly, please send SERIOUS media and legal inquiries to:
justice4all2005@yahoo.com
Rhonda Fleming
Cleveland, Ohio
Sister of Allen Jackson Croft Jr, murdered in Durham on May 11, 2005 fighting for JUSTICE
For legal reference please refer to Mr. Ekstrand for personal contact:
Robert C. Ekstrand
Firm: Ekstrand & Ekstrand
Address: 811 Ninth Street, Suite 260
Durham, NC 27705
Phone: (919) 416-4590
Fax: (919) 416-4591
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-931447.cfm
Jail suicide prompts no policy changes
BY BRIANNE DOPART : The Herald-Sun
bdopart@heraldsun.com
Mar 8, 2008
DURHAM -- Despite claims by inmates that a Durham County Jail prisoner spoke openly of suicidal tendencies and a discovery of suicide notes, officials say they received no such indications before the 27-year-old man ended his life.
And there are no plans for policy or structural changes at the jail, where fellow inmates found assault suspect Brian Lashand Rollins hanging from part of a window frame in his cell about 4 p.m. on Feb. 9. That was about 30 minutes after he'd last been seen alive, according to the report of his autopsy.
Days after the hanging death of Rollins, county leaders told The Herald-Sun they'd await the outcome of the Sheriff's Office investigation to determine if additional safety precautions were needed to ensure the jail was a safe place for its inmates.
According to Deputy County Manager Carolyn Titus, it is routine procedure for the Sheriff's Office to investigate a jailhouse death, ensure no foul play was involved and then recommend any adjustments that need to be made to the facility.
Titus said that the Sheriff's Office made no such recommendations and expressed confidence in the safety of inmates housed at the jail.
Rollins, a father of eight, was without a pulse when he was discovered. He was taken to Duke University Hospital, where he was declared brain dead the next morning and died a short time later.
He was found hanging from a window frame in his cell. But the Sheriff's Office says there is no need to adjust cells by removing items from which an inmate could be hanged. Sheriff's Office Investigator Tom Mellown, who investigated the case, said suicidal individuals can hang themselves from anything, so long as they can apply enough pressure to the neck to block the passage of air.
Yet in the past, the Sheriff's Office has requested money from the county to rid cells of vents based on the argument that the vents present a safety threat and an opportunity for hanging. Mellown, who as investigator has no part in budgeting, could not comment on those past requests, he said.
Mellown's criminal investigation into Rollins' death determined there was no foul play. From conversations with guards, jail employees and four or five inmates, Mellown determined there were no indications that the 27-year-old inmate was suicidal, he said.
One inmate did tell the investigator that Rollins never responded to him when he tried to chat with him from an adjacent cell. Another inmate told the investigator Rollins talked to him about wanting to end his life. But according to Mellown, the inmate said he never told any jail guards or officials of Rollins' intentions.
One inmate who was in the jail at the same time as Rollins told The Herald-Sun that, contrary to the Sheriff's Office's investigation, the troubled inmate told anyone who would listen that he wanted to end his life. But the guards, he claimed, were either too busy or didn't care and ignored Rollins' repeated pleas for help.
Rollins was distraught, the source said, over relationship issues involving a woman. Rollins was being held in the jail on a charge of assault on a female. His bond was $50,000. It was unclear whether the assault victim was the same woman with whom he was romantically involved.
According to the Sheriff's Office, no red flags arose during a 10-question psychological assessment that Rollins, like all inmates entering the jail, was subject to when he arrived at the facility Feb. 6.
Jail procedure calls for inmates to be administered the test only upon arrival, regardless of how long they are to be held in the jail. But if an inmate reaches out for help or if jail employees notice an inmate acting in a way that demonstrates his or her psychological state has changed, they will be referred for reassessment.
Rollins was not referred for any such assessment.
THIS is the SAME man who "INVESTIGATED" my brother's death, and you all still think HE and LE are to be trusted at all?!?!
AND, again, NO autopsy was done for my brother, AND we were LIED to and told one was done, plus threatened!!!!!
For the love of God people, DO SOMETHING!!!!
Rhonda Fleming
Durham SURVIVOR
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