Duke lacrosse accuser charged with murder

And a few years after the reputations and lives of some college kids were ruined....

By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Mike Baker, Associated Press – Tue Apr 19, 7:24 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110419/ap_on_re_us/us_duke_lacrosse_accuser

RALEIGH, N.C. – A murder charge against the woman who falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of raping her is but the latest problem for a woman friends say is still haunted by the stigma of the lacrosse case.

Crystal Mangum, 32, was indicted Monday on a charge of first-degree murder and two counts of larceny. She has been in jail since April 3, when police charged her with assault in the stabbing of her boyfriend Reginald Daye, 46. He died after nearly two weeks at a hospital.

An attorney for Mangum did not return a call seeking comment. The district attorney's office declined to discuss the case.

Friends said Mangum has never recovered from the stigma brought by the lacrosse case and has been involved in a string of questionable relationships in an attempt to provide stability for her children.

Mangum, who is black, falsely accused the white lacrosse players of raping her at a 2006 party for which she was hired to perform as a stripper. The case heightened long-standing tensions in Durham about race, class and the privileged status of college athletes.

The district attorney who championed Mangum's claims was later disbarred. North Carolina's attorney general eventually declared the players innocent of a "tragic rush to accuse."

Prosecutors declined to press charges for the false accusations, but Mangum's bizarre legal troubles continued.

Last year, she was convicted on misdemeanor charges after setting a fire that nearly torched her home with her three children inside. In a videotaped police interrogation, she told officers she got into a confrontation with her boyfriend at the time — not Daye — and burned his clothes, smashed his car windshield and threatened to stab him.

A federal judge recently ruled the three players accused of rape — Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans — can pursue a lawsuit against former District Attorney Mike Nifong and the police investigators who handled their case. The players have not sued Mangum.

Vincent Clark, a friend who co-authored Mangum's self-published memoir, said he hopes people don't rush to judgment — echoing one of the oft-cited lessons of the lacrosse case itself.

Clark said Mangum realizes she has mental health problems.

"I'm sad for her. I hope people realize how difficult it is being her," Clark said.

Even when Daye's nephew talked to a 911 dispatcher after the stabbing, he referenced the notoriety Mangum still carries.

"It's Crystal Mangum. THE Crystal Mangum," said the nephew, whose name was removed from a publicly-released version of the emergency call. "I told him she was trouble from the damn beginning."

Bryant Gumbel: a racist fool

So, first let's see what he said:

Because [the Winter Olympics] are so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try too. Like try not to be incredulous when someone tries to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something’s not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what’s called a “kiss and cry area” while some panel of subjective judges decides who won. And try to blot out all logic when announcers and sports writers pretend to care about the luge, the skeleton, the biathlon, and all those other events they don’t understand and totally ignore for all but three weeks every four years. Face it, these Olympics are little more than a marketing plan to fill space and sell time during the dreary days of February. So, if only to hasten the arrival of the day they’re done, and we can move on to March Madness, for God’s sake, let the Games begin.

Bolding mine.


Why is Bryant Gumbel allowed to be racist? Why does the color of Olympic athletes' skin matter? Isn't the fight against racism meant to ELIMINATE racism, which means to stop judging other people by the color of their skin? And if athletes are not "world-class" because they are white, is that not a racist comment?

Of course it is racist. But since Gumbel is a black liberal, he can get away with it. Really, the media gives blacks and liberals a higher standards when it comes to racist comments... because of course blacks and liberals can't possible be racist! So it must be... acceptable?

Howard Dean, Louis Farrakhan, Hillary Clinton, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson.... can say whatever they want. But when Rush Limbaugh makes a sociological comment, about Donovan McNabb being hyped up because he is a black quarterback, he's instantly fired.

Let's also look at the "logic" of Gumbel's comment.

It's the freaking winter olympics!! Skiing and skating are the big events. They involve SNOW and ICE. Where are most black athletes from??? USA, Caribbean islands, Brazil, AFRICA.... aside from northern regions of the USA, where do you find snow and ice? Not in the islands, not in Africa.... did it ever occur to Gumbel that maybe there are not as many black athletes in the winter olympics because the winter sports are not ones that black athletes are usually attracted to, or even have an opportunity to play??? Seriously, if you grow up in Trinidad, are you going to play soccer.... or ice hockey? If you are from Zimbabwe, are you going to like track, or skiing? Gumbel is a freaking idiot. And the sad thing is that he is so racist that the "illogicity" of his statement cannot break through the thick cloud of racism. But since he is a liberal minority, he can say whatever he wants.

I would love to do a sociological experiment to see how the media reacts to the same thing said by both a black guy and white guy, buy both a liberal and conservative... it would be telling, let me tell you.