Black on trial for rape and murder of white co-ed

Currently being shown on Court TV until 3 p.m. today is the trial of Orange Amir Taylor III, accused in the rape and murder of 22 year old Laura Dickinson in her dorm room at Eastern Michigan University last December. Dickinson was found naked with bruises on her neck and signs of rape, but the university and police said she had died of natural causes, and apparently the family believed this. But ten weeks later, Orange Amir Taylor, a black student at the university, who had previously broken into dorm rooms but not expelled or apparently even punished, was arrested and charged. Several top officials at the university were later fired for the cover-up. All the stories I’ve seen focus on the university having covered up the crime. There has not been a single mention of the police having covered up the crime. Apparently in our multicultural society, universities are now the legal authority overseeeing the investigation of rape and murder on the university campus. According to David B.:

The defense attorney, in his opening, said that Orange Taylor III came into Miss Dickinson’s room and found her already dead. He then masturbated over her body, picked up a package, and left. He is supposedly going to take the witness stand and tell this story.

Stories on this murder and cover-up are here and here. As is typical with today’s journalism, both stories generate more questions—fundamental questions—than they answer.

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David B. writes:

I taped some of the Court TV coverage and just went back and watched comments by Court TV reporter Michael Bryant. He said some interesting things.

Bryant said that Orange Taylor had broken into an administrative building in 2005. Taylor was quoted at that time as saying that he was “looking for girls and activity.” It’s not certain the jury will hear this. There does not appear to have been forced entry. It appears the door was unlocked, though this hasn’t been clarified yet. He got into the dorm by “tailgating.” When somebody swiped in, Bryant followed behind. The authorities had made Bryant stay out his original dorm, presumably because of the 2005 incident. He had been going in dorms all over campus however, while living with his parents. His friends were just letting him in when they entered. RA’s check students in the dorms, but only until 2 a.m. He got in after 4 a.m. by “tailgating.”

Taylor did not know the victim, had never had a class with her, or even been in the same building. He had been seen on a surveillance video a week after the death, and was a suspect, but wasn’t arrested until Feb. 23. This was over two months after the crime. This was some time after they had his DNA. The police spent that time investigating Miss Dickinson’s boyfriend and classmates.

No one has explained why the police did not announce that a murder had taken place. There were 15 investigators from various law enforcement agencies around the time the body was found. It was called a “death investigation,” one of the things the school relies on to deflect blame.

The above information comes from a five minute discussion by Michael Bryant this morning on Court TV, which I had taped. You might ask why Taylor wasn’t expelled after the 2005 breaking in. I inferred that he was punished by being kept out of a dorm, as Bryant did not say this. In liberal America, this is how you try to find information about certain crimes. The coverage continues tomorrow starting at 9 a.m. ET on Court TV.

Stephen F. writes:

Here is an article (for subscribers only) that earlier appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It also makes no message of the responsibility of the police.

I can only note the bizarre, divorced-from-reality tone of the article, which blandly focuses on such questions as whether the president of the university was amiss in not forming a “crisis team” following a death on campus and the applicability of one Clery Act that requires universities to inform their communities of crimes and dangers on campus (!)

Administrators trying to cover their a__es, female heads of campus police, black “students” only identifiable as black from their names (Orange Amir Taylor III!), investigations by entities with no connection to crime and law enforcement, a medical report released three months after a suspicious death.

Can Americans still feel safe in this society?

LA replies:

I’ve read a copy of the article that Stephen sent me. It’s quite long, going into the troubled relations between President Fallon and the Regents and faculty over a variety of issue, so that his cover up of the murder (or his failure to know about the murder) was just the last straw. It tells nothing about the murder itself except this:

Since then, it has become clear that at least four Eastern Michigan administrators knew how Ms. Dickinson’s body was found: on her back, legs spread, naked from the waist down, with a pillow over her face. One official cited fear of compromising the case as the reason he did not tell even her parents that she had probably been murdered.

It never mentions the police. It never gives a plausible reason why Fallon and other school officials concealed the murder The above mention of “fear of compromising the case” is, without further explanation, unintelligible.

And then this:

Robert Dickinson, Laura’s father, mentioned to reporters that his daughter had had cardiac arrhythmia, so many people believed the otherwise healthy 22-year-old had died of heart failure. Resident advisers told some students at Eastern Michigan she had committed suicide.

Mr. Fallon approved the statement that said there was no foul play, and did not push for more information. When pressed for details, he said he was waiting for the medical examiner’s report, which did not come out until early March—after the arrest. It listed Ms. Dickinson’s cause of death as asphyxiation.

And what did the police tell Mr. Dickinson about how his daughter had died? No mention of that. How is it that a man’s daughter died under circumstances that clearly showed rape and murder and he was never told this, and he never asked about it? It appears that Robert Dickinson is as incurious about his daughter’s death as President Fallon.

In this article that is apparently about the Kafkaesque non-responsiveness of the university officials, everyone shows the same non-responsiveness, including the girl’s father, including the Chronicles’ writer. We’re a country of Eloi.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 16, 2007 02:03 PM | Send