**UPDATE: Columbia finally handed over the tapes, just before being served with a subpoena. What the fuck?? **
borrowed from the Globe and Mail website: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071011.wnoose1011/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20071011.wnoose1011
Columbia not co-operating in noose case, police say
NEW YORK — Columbia University has refused to turn over security videotape that could help identify who hung a noose on a black professor’s office door, police said Thursday.
Investigators began asking on Wednesday for tapes from cameras in the building but have been rebuffed by administrators, said Paul Browne, the New York Police Department’s top spokesman.
He said police will have to get a court order to force the school to provide video they believe could crack the case.
“It’s unfortunate because it adds a time-consuming step to the investigation,” Mr. Browne said.
A Columbia spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
Authorities were testing the 1.2-metre-long twine noose for DNA evidence, but had no suspects as of Thursday morning.
On Wednesday, the professor who was the target of the attack, Madonna Constantine, told hundreds of faculty and students at a rally on the Ivy League campus that the incident was a “blatant act of racism” that “reeks of cowardice and fear.”
“I’m upset that our community has been exposed to such an unbelievably vile incident,” she said.
Police believe the noose was placed on the doorknob of Ms. Constantine’s office at Teachers College – Columbia’s graduate school of education – early Tuesday. A colleague spotted it then and notified authorities.
Police would not to discuss possible motives or suspects.
Ms. Constantine, 44, told police there was “ill will” between her and another professor who had replaced her while she was on an extended leave, a police official said.
The official, insisting on anonymity, stressed that the dispute was only one possible lead, and that police were also looking into whether “disgruntled students, anyone upset with grades” were involved.
The state Attorney General’s office also sent lawyers from its civil rights bureau and investigators to look into the incident, said spokesman Jeffrey Lerner.
Ms. Constantine, a professor of psychology and education, has written about race. Nooses – reviled as symbols of lynchings in the Old South – have showed up in several recent incidents around the United States.
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That’s amazing…wait…no it’s not! It seems that white folks have become much bolder in their racism since 9-11 and the more they get away with it, like Katrina, the bolder they get.
Thanks for bringing this story up.
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