Making a big deal out of a little fire: the Mangum arson timeline

The following information has been obtained from fire records, police reports, and other documents that are accessible by the public. Data from these papers are used to set up an accurate account of what transpired during the night of February 17, 2010, and early morning of February 18, 2010 at the Durham apartment that was rented by the Duke Lacrosse accuser Crystal Mangum.

February 17, 2010 – evening. Crystal Mangum is at the apartment she rents with her three children. She has a dispute with her ex-boyfriend who has been staying for a short time at her apartment intermittently. Crystal’s nine year-old daughter becomes concerned about her mother’s welfare during this dispute, and places a call to 911 seeking help for her mother.

Durham Police officer H. P. Thompson arrives at the house in which the dispute is taking place, late at night on the 17th, no time of arrival is listed on the reports.

February 17, 2010 – 11:53 pm. Ms. Mangum is placed under arrest by Officer Thompson, according to the arrest report.

February 18, 2010 – 12:08:56 am. 15 minutes after Ms. Mangum’s arrest, an alarm to the Durham Fire Department is placed by the Durham Police reporting a “structure fire with a subject trapped” at the address of Crystal Mangum.

February 18, 2010 – 12:15: 10 am. 6 minutes, 14 seconds after receiving the call, Fire Engine 3 arrives on the scene. When they arrive, they find the bathroom door closed, and upon opening it notice that a fire was visible in the bathtub. With a 1 ¾ inch hose-line extending through the front door, the firemen spray water on the fire in the bathtub.

February 18, 2010 – 12:18:00 am. 2 minutes, 50 seconds after arriving on the scene, the firemen extinguish the fire in the bathtub. Although there is no indication from the fire reports or police reports that the walls, floor, or ceiling of the bathroom sustained any fire damage, the firemen pull the ceiling of the bathroom to check for extension of the fire… and find that there is none.

Engine 3 then advises command that an investigator is needed for this incident.

February 18, 2010 – 1:40:31 am. 1 hour, 22 minutes, 31 seconds after extinguishing the fire, the last unit leaves the scene.

What is not clear in any of the reports is why the police officers, upon finding the clothing on fire in the bathtub did not simply turn on the faucet or shower head and douse the fire? Instead, it seems, the police decided to close the bathroom door in hopes of slowing the spread of the fire from the bathtub to other parts of the structure. There was no mention of any fire damage to the walls, floors, or ceilings in the bathroom or anywhere else within the apartment. It seems that had the fire been extinguished by the police when they first became aware of it, any smoke damage would have been significantly minimized. The time that had elapsed from when Ms. Mangum was arrested by police until the fire was extinguished by the fire department was 25 minutes.

I am not a fireman, but I have serious questions as to why an investigator would be needed for this fire. Common sense would dictate that Ms. Mangum must have harbored some ill feelings toward her ex-boyfriend and wanted to release frustrations by setting his clothing on fire (not unlike the scene in the movie “Waiting to Exhale” in which the Angela Bassett character sets her boyfriends clothing on fire… not in a bathtub like Ms. Mangum did, but in her boyfriend’s sports car). It is obvious that by placing the ex-boyfriend’s clothing in a fireproof bathtub, that Ms. Mangum was executing a controlled burn, and had no intention of burning down the house. In lieu of a fireplace, the bathtub is the most logical place to burn someone’s clothing. Furthermore, there was no mention in any of the official reports of an accelerant being used in the fire. It makes no sense that in a fit of anger at her ex-boyfriend, Ms. Mangum would burn her residence that she shared with her three children.

If anyone acted negligently during this event, it would be the police, who instead of immediately extinguishing the fire in the bathtub upon detection, decided to close the bathroom door and call the fire department to put out the fire. Their irresponsible actions put the entire apartment building in jeopardy of being burnt to the ground. The police enabled the smoke damage to the building grow in magnitude, and the extensive smoke damage possibly forced the firemen to pull the ceiling in the bathroom. Why the reluctance on the part of the police to put out the fire? More likely than not it was to magnify the seriousness of the charges that they would lob against Ms. Mangum, the accuser of the Duke Lacrosse defendants. Their misguided motivation for acting against Ms. Mangum was in compliance with the Carpetbagger Jihad movement directed at anyone or anything on the “wrong end” of the Duke Lacrosse case.

With respect to the fire, Crystal Mangum was arrested on a felony first degree arson charge (initially five counts, then later reduced to one count). Ms. Mangum was indicted by a grand jury on the charge of first degree arson under North Carolina statute 14-58. According to that statute, a first degree arson charge is in reference to a building or a structure that is burned while inhabited. It is evident that the structure (building, or apartment) was not burned, nor was there an attempt made to burn the structure by Ms. Mangum. The blatantly false charges are vendetta-driven and make a mockery of the North Carolina justice system, its police officers, prosecutors and courts. It is past time for the Duke Lacrosse case related foolery to cease. Crystal Mangum should be immediately released from custody and the charges against her dismissed. The justice system should not be involved in lengthening her time of incarceration for the purpose of disrupting her employment situation and losing custody of her children. What is really shameful is that our system of justice is not only cruel and draconian in its workings, but that it allows the Carpetbaggers to dictate the degree of callous and inhumane treatment.

In addition to releasing Crystal Mangum, the courts should also immediately release Alan Gell, another victim of vendetta justice. Prosecutor David Hoke withheld exculpatory evidence in winning a capital murder conviction against Gell, an innocent man. After serving ten years of wrongful incarceration, Gell was set free at re-trial, and he filed lawsuits against those individuals and agencies responsible for his conviction. When law enforcement learned that he impregnated his girlfriend just prior to her turning legal age, he was convicted on some convoluted cockamamie charge and sentenced to five years. This, after serving ten years wrongfully incarcerated. Do the math: Gell wrongfully incarcerated ten years minus five year cockamamie sentence equals immediate release from prison with five years credit.

Million dollar bail… a case comparison – Part 6

Christopher Ray McBride, 28, has a troubled past history that includes an eleven month prison sentence in 2003 for breaking and entering, embezzlement, assault, larceny and drug manufacturing. According to the News & Observer article of April 30, 2010, McBride was convicted in 2004 and 2005 of assaulting a female and resisting an officer, and served a probation sentence until April 2006. Most recently, he was scheduled for court this month on firearms possession and drug charges.

The April 30th N & O article titled “Father charged in blinding” states that Mr. McBride was jailed on a child abuse charge after he assaulted his 1 year-old daughter and left her permanently blind. The loss of the child’s sight as due to brain trauma she sustained at the base of her skull. Mr. McBride was not charged with attempted first degree murder, and his bail was initially set at $125,000.

Crystal Mangum, who allegedly scratched her boyfriend, on the other hand, is charged with attempted first degree murder in what her boyfriend described as a “misunderstanding.” Ms. Mangum used no weapons, inflicted no injuries, and yet she was saddled with a million dollar bail, and remains in jail after her arrest on February 18, 2010.

When her prosecutor obtained a grand jury indictment, the felony attempted first degree murder charge was not even considered. Also, the simple assault and battery misdemeanor charge was not acted upon by the grand jury. Neither the misdemeanor charge of communicating threats nor the felony charge of identity theft was entertained by the grand jury. And although many of the charges piled on Ms. Mangum at her arrest were not sought by prosecutors before the grand jury, her bail was reduced to $250,000 with the condition that if she were to raise the bond, she would be released from jail to remain under house arrest. Her bail has since been reduced to $100,000.

As has been stated previously, the selective and unjust treatment Ms. Mangum has endured from the police, prosecutors, and courts, is not unlike the abusive, excessive, and unjust treatment to which former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong was subjected. The disparities in their sentences in comparison with others are the proximate result of their roles in the Duke Lacrosse case… Ms. Mangum, the accuser, and Mr. Nifong, the prosecutor.

The vendetta justice that ensnared Ms. Mangum is not unlike that which resulted in Alan Gell being given an extremely harsh five year prison sentence for a charge with circumstances that would have only netted others probation. Gell spent a decade wrongfully incarcerated, initially sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit. Prosecutor David Hoke withheld exculpatory evidence from Gell’s defense attorney in winning a capital murder conviction. And when Mr. Gell sought the legal retribution to which he was entitled, he incurred the wrath of the North Carolina justice system… and he now sits in prison, a victim of vendetta justice.

Both Crystal Mangum and Alan Gell should be immediately released from confinement. Neither of them is a flight risk or a danger to society. In fact, the charges against them both are drastically inflated and not worthy of incarceration. Their incarcerations, solely to quench the vindictive thirst of the North Carolina justice system and, in the case of Ms. Mangum, the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants, are exacting a toll on North Carolina taxpayers who must pay for their prison accommodations. The money used to keep them behind bars is money that could be better spent… for example, to help pay to defend the cash-strapped city of Durham from the civil lawsuits filed by the avaricious Carpetbagger families and their greedy attorneys.

Although their release makes sense on a financial level to taxpayers and North Carolina residents, their immediate release from custody is the right thing to do, it is the ethical thing to do, and it is what justice demands to be done. There is no place in a just justice system for vendettas.

Vendetta justice makes a mockery of the NC courts at taxpayer expense

A 59 year old man went into an online chat room and became the acquaintance of a fourteen year old girl. Later, he traveled from Raleigh to Burlington, North Carolina where he met the young teenager in person. An attentive Burlington police officer noted suspicious activity by a car driven by the man (it had no license plate), and upon pulling it over noted that the 59 year old male driver was accompanied by the 14 year old girl as a passenger. Also in the vehicle were drugs and drug paraphernalia. The man, Bryant Harrison Dennis, was arrested and charged with statutory sex offense, indecent liberties, contributing to delinquency of a minor, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia… and his bail was set at $10,000.
During a domestic dispute which her boyfriend described as a “misunderstanding,” Crystal Mangum allegedly scratched her boyfriend, and executed a controlled burn of some of her boyfriend’s clothes. As a result, she was charged with attempted first degree murder, assault and battery, five counts of felony arson, three counts of contributing to the delinquency of juvenile, communicating threats, identity theft, injury to personal property, and resisting arrest… bail for her was set at one million dollars.

The two-case comparative illustrated above represents but a small sampling of disparity in treatment afforded to the majority of criminal suspects versus someone on the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case. It is the vastness of the difference in treatment between the two which requires the public to suspend logic and sense of fair play that enables the North Carolina justice system to even dare to implement such draconian and excessive charges and outrageously high bail. Strip away the veneer of anti-Nifong public fervor created by the media, and the charges against Ms. Mangum and the million dollar bail are laughable. It is payback… vendetta justice… courtesy of the Carpetbagger Jihadists. What is really ironic is that the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants and their attorneys are able to foment anti-Nifong and anti-accuser sentiment among Durhamians and get unyielding support from them while at the same time costing those same Durhamians millions of tax dollars to defend the city of Durham against the carpetbagger lawsuits. The media has been an effective and willing accomplice of the Jihadists in achieving this outcome which boggles the logical mind.

Probably one of the best known examples of vendetta justice nationally is that which Orenthal James Simpson received in Las Vegas, Nevada, after he succumbed to what I believe to be an elaborately executed sting operation. The judge in that case before handing down an extremely harsh sentence against Simpson, told the courtroom and the media that her ruling was not in the least bit influenced by Simpson’s prior criminal court battle in which he was found not guilty. Although the judge gave those assurances with a straight face, anyone and everyone with any knowledge about the Nicole Brown Simpson/Ron Goldman murders and the subsequent trial of O. J. Simpson, knew otherwise. And the judge knew they knew, but because the public animus and anger towards Simpson, the judge felt comfortable issuing an unprecedented lengthy prison sentence for him… and the judge may have even felt compelled to do so by the people.

There are many instances of vendetta justice in the Tar Heel state, and they include the following cases: Gregory Taylor (charged and convicted by prosecutor Tom Ford because Taylor would not implicate an innocent black man in a murder… after his exoneration by a three judge panel, the state continues its harassment of him, including the withholding of a pardon by the governor); Floyd Brown (a profoundly retarded man who was charged with murder based solely on a confession which experts state he could not have made… held for fourteen years without a trial, and when finally released Prosecutor Michael D. Parker willfully disrupted and interfered with assisted living arrangements that had been set up by his family and state agencies); Theodore Jerry Williams (who complained about the district attorney’s office, and later while in custody, was brutally beaten up – including a broken arm – and then charged with attacking a correctional guard).

One of the most shameful examples of vendetta justice is that of Alan Gell. He was sentenced to death, even though the prosecutors had exculpatory evidence (which they withheld from the defense team) proving that he could not possibly have committed the murder for which he was charged. He served ten years before the evidence came to light and he prevailed at a re-trial. Gell incurred the wrath of the state when he filed civil law suits about his unfair and tragic ordeal (however, unlike Mike Nifong, Prosecutor David Hoke was granted immunity as a state employee). Subsequently, when it came to the attention of the Johnston County prosecutor’s office that Gell impregnated his girlfriend just prior to her being of legal age, he was charged, and given a five year sentence. Under usual circumstances probation would be more likely, but nothing as severe as the sentence he received. This sentence was enforced without consideration given to the fact that Alan Gell had already wrongfully served ten years for a murder he did not commit. The convoluted and tortuous reasoning for the charges against Gell and his sentence defy common sense and mathematics. According to my arithmetic, ten years wrongly served minus five years of a bogus sentence equals freedom with five years credit… and it shouldn’t have taken a Joe Cheshire to get Gell a better deal. Alan Gell remains incarcerated today. He should be immediately released.

Almost everyone associated with the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case has been a victim of vendetta justice… no one more so than Mike Nifong. He has been so vilified and demonized by the Carpetbagger Jihadist Machine with its media and public relations connections, that he, his supporters, Crystal Mangum, and others connected with the Duke Lacrosse case are treated by the police, prosecutors, and courts with the same disregard for the rule of law and fair play that O. J. Simpson was subjected to during his Las Vegas interaction with the criminal justice system.

The public turned a blind eye as unprecedented injustice upon unprecedented injustice was heaped upon former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong… including disbarment, a jail sentence, and a request for the U.S. Department of Justice to proceed with criminal charges against him for depriving the three Duke lacrosse beer-guzzling, stripper partygoers of their civil rights. The public’s blind eye is a powerful enabler that allows those dispensing criminal justice in the state to veer from or even totally disregard the legal statutes in place to assure impartiality and fairness in the system.

Mike Nifong supporters are likewise being targeted with unjust treatment. At a recent event on the campus of Duke University, a known Nifong supporter and member of the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong who was wearing a Committee tee shirt, was accused of trespassing on Duke’s private property despite the fact that he was on campus at the institution’s public invitation to attend a three-way interview featuring U. S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He was not told prior to attending the event that Mike Nifong supporters were not invited, and he was not warned prior to attending that his presence on the campus was not wanted. Instead, upon leaving the event, a security guard honed in him, telling him that he was trespassing. Despite the Nifong supporter’s protestations, the guard escorted him off the property in a manner to ensure the infliction of emotional pain, humiliation, public scorn, and embarrassment… and there was the continuous threat of imminent arrest, as the guard called in backup. It is evident that Duke University has no qualms with suspending civil rights and First Amendment Rights when it comes to Mike Nifong supporters.

But it is the malicious and cruel treatment of Ms. Mangum that truly puts North Carolina to shame when it comes to vendetta justice. The media is responsible for getting the public to forget that Ms. Mangum was the victim at the Duke Lacrosse beer-guzzling stripper party. She was the one who was scheduled by the escort service (under false pretenses by a Duke lacrosse party host) to perform at the bacchanalian festivity. She was the one who was dehumanized and humiliated by the mostly Duke lacrosse team members… one of whom made obscene gestures with a broom. She was the one with whom the partygoers vented anger after she stopped dancing minutes into the performance due to the audience’s lewd and crude behavior. Finally, she was the one upon whom some of the partygoer’s heaped racial epithets, including the n-word. Yet Crystal Mangum is the one who is targeted for vendetta justice by the courts and the state… and the court and justice system, under the Jedi mind-trick spell of the carpetbaggers, are quick to impose it.

The vendetta justice plan for Ms. Mangum is to punish her by keeping her incarcerated for as long a period as possible. So far she has remained imprisoned since February 18, 2010, and even if she was able to post bond, the judge in the case determined that she would be released to house arrest. No such contingency was made for the aforementioned child predator with the $10,000 bail… when he posts bond, he’s free. A mean-spirited and punitive backbone supports the North Carolina justice system, one in which the principles of fairness, compassion, morality, and rehabilitation are defiled.

Finally, vendetta justice comes at a cost to taxpayers in the state. Using the police, prosecutors and courts to exact private party (i.e. Carpetbagger) revenge results in taxpayer dollars going towards unjustified prosecution, diverts police and court resources that could otherwise be focused on legitimate crime, and pays for expenses needed to incarcerate many individuals who are neither a threat to society nor a flight risk. Especially in this period of economic hardship with the state and municipalities scrapping by financially, the concept of vendetta justice should be immediately jettisoned. It is time to, among other things, release those wrongfully incarcerated by vendetta justice (Alan Gell, Crystal Mangum, George Goode, Rayford Burke, etal.). Money used to pay for their incarceration could be much better spent defending the cash-strapped city of Durham from the lawsuits of the avaricious Carpetbaggers and their money-hungry attorneys.