While a flier featuring photographs of Duke’s lacrosse players began appearing around campus, the university’s president, Richard H. Brodhead, urged a group of students Wednesday morning to learn from the controversy surrounding the team.
In the afternoon, the players returned to the practice field even though their season has been suspended until authorities conclude an investigation into a woman’s allegations that three lacrosse players sexually assaulted her at a private party.
In the evening, several hundred people marched in a long-planned “Take Back the Night” rally, held annually to raise awareness of sexual assault against women.
The Durham police, meanwhile, issued a plea for anyone with information about the woman’s allegations to come forward. The flier, distributed by a campus group and containing pictures of 43 of the 47 players on the lacrosse roster, said that the rest of the photographs could not be retrieved because the athletic department Web site had taken them down Monday.
The accuser, a black student at a nearby college who agreed to dance at the party, told the police that she was assaulted by three white Duke lacrosse players in a bathroom of the residence of two of the team’s captains.
The appeal for information appeared to be aimed at an unidentified woman who called 911 about half an hour before a supermarket security guard called on behalf of the accuser. At 12:53 a.m. March 14, the female caller told the 911 operator that she was passing the house where the party was going on and was cursed by at least one man standing in front of it.
According to a transcript of the call, she said that “a white guy by the Duke wall” had yelled a racial epithet at her and a black friend, and that “I’m just so angry I didn’t know who to call.”
The woman said she lived in the neighborhood and gave the address on North Buchanan Boulevard, where the party was held.
While police acknowledged they had searched a second residence housing lacrosse players, Michael B. Nifong, the Durham County district attorney, said he believed investigators were building a solid case that disputed the team’s contention that no sexual assault had occurred.
He said a nurse who examined the accuser had found physical trauma as well as “emotional behavior consistent with going through a traumatic experience.”
“We have reason to believe not everything in the students’ statements was completely accurate,” Nifong said. “They denied any sex acts took place, and I don’t believe that is the case.”
But he said he did not necessarily expect the DNA samples taken last Thursday from the team’s 46 white players to match evidence taken from the accuser.
“I would not be surprised if condoms were used,” he said.
