✔Fact Checker here.
Mr. Trask, you have said there is little need at Duke for professional, fully trained, armed police officers. You advocated that officers be replaced with cheaper security guards hired by the day from a private contractor.
You said this well before the financial crisis struck. Now that saving money is important, with the meltdown of our endowment and with a 62 percent decline in gifts, are you even stronger in this view?
Or has the Durham on Duke violence now come close enough to Allen Building for you to wake up. What is your view at this time?
Has the fatal shooting this morning -- plus the injury (wounding?) of a Duke Police Officer with no details yet available -- changed your mind? You never responded to this question 18 months ago when more blood flowed and less than a half mile away, a graduate student at Duke was murdered at his own home by a posse of Durham thugs.
Or won't we find out because you do not answer questions from the public?
Mr. Trask, campus police were among those offered early retirement. President Brodhead went to a retirement ceremony this fall at the Nasher where officers with combined service and experience of 372 years left; he was all smiles then. How about giving us specifics now to reassure us that the force is back up to full strength and par.
Mr Trask, you have direct responsibility for campus police. One of your officers is right now accused of a felony -- the S and M rape of a woman. Are you for some reason not sensitive to the seriousness of this charge?
This officer had his Duke Police uniform, Duke handcuffs and Duke gun. Along with a whip, a giant enema bag and over-sized butt plug. You supervised an inquiry into this man's career at Duke, starting with the question of why he left a higher paid job and vesting pension benefits after nearly ten years as a Master Patrolman (love that title) in Raleigh. At Duke, where did he patrol? Did he have access to sensitive student records? To victims of sex crimes in the hospital? Fact Checker believes this community is entitled to know.
The last time The Chronicle raised these questions, the police chief, under your direct supervision in the neatly drawn organizational charts you so love, dodged by saying the inquiry was not done. That was five months ago.
Do you have the decency to answer now?
✔Fact Checker. On duty even during Spring Break.
March 13, 2010
Fact Checker
✔Thank you Chronicle for your excellent work on this important story. And an extra ✔✔ from Fact Checker for informing us of the disgraceful runaround you are receiving from the Duke PR people.
You mention Mr. Stokke, bouncing to Mr Jarmul, who bounced to Mr. Stokke, who then made himself unavailable.
This is the same Stokke, associate (correction) vice president for PR, who appeared in a December 7 Chronicle story on the closing of the student pharmacy. Careful readers will recall how Outpatient Pharmacy Manager Stefanadis referred all questions to his boss, Chief Pharmacy Officer Bush. Bush, after agreeing to an interview, canceled and never could be reached again.
Back to Stefanadis. He told the Chronicle that Duke PR had stopped all interviews. Finally the Chronicle reached Stokke again, who referred questions regarding the pharmacy transition to Bush.
Readers, you deserve to know that Duke PR is increasingly using this tactic: bouncing like a loose basketball from official to official.
They are also stopping officials with direct responsibility and knowledge from speaking. For example, the VP and University Secretary was prevented from discussing something as routine as the date when a Trustee's term expired.
This is the same Stokke who has failed to respond to respond to three recent requests from a Deputy Fact Checker -- the first contact ever made with Stokke -- for a full biography of Chancellor Dzau as part of a continuing investigation.
Schoenfeld has also failed to respond to this request.
✔Readers, you are entitled to know about the performance of Duke officials.