Last night the three candidates for Durham police chief responded to community questions in a public forum. Here are my two favorite quotes from Ronald Hodge, current deputy chief.
“I think we’ve seen here recently the [city] manager’s report as it
pertains to the Duke lacrosse case where we indicated some mistakes may
have been made, but we didn’t think that it was the things that were
fatal to the outcome of the case. However, there’s still some
investigations ongoing with that. … The jury remains out on those
things, but I think at the end of the day we’ll be OK.” (Source here.)“What I know about the Duke lacrosse case and the need for us to rebuild
in the community seems to be a perception that’s portrayed by you guys
in the media. … I know that our citizens are tired of the Duke
lacrosse case, our officers are not so much tired of the Duke lacrosse
case, but are probably getting a little impatient with how it’s being
covered and played out in the media and probably more importantly how
people are asking them questions about it out there in the public.” (Source here.)
Some mistakes? Tired of the Duke lacrosse case? My apologies, sir, especially for the public scrutiny that now surrounds the issue. It was much easier when you could–and did–violate police procedure to carry out a witch hunt. I’m so sorry that defense of the department’s highly questionable choices is now tiresome. Maybe we should ask the Duke lacrosse team–including Reade, Collin, and David–how they feel.
