Those accused of gang-raping a 17-year-old girl at the University Villa apartments in August say police immediately assumed they were guilty. One of the accused players, who says he wasn't at the apartment when the alleged incident occurred, says officers have repeatedly harassed him and his roommates since executing a search warrant on Aug. 10.

Officers have since returned unannounced and without reason, he says. One night, he says, police kicked in the front door of his apartment, trying to enter.

Provo police spokeswoman Karen Mayne says officers have not returned to the apartment since executing the search. And University Villa owner Dave Freeman says a door was never kicked in.

No charges have yet been filed against any of the players in connection with the August incident.

"We respond to the type of crime that allegedly occurred, and our investigative procedures are always the same," Mayne says. "We don't do anything different, regardless of age or race or anything else."

Don Harwell, president of Genesis, a support group for black Latter-day Saints established by LDS Church President Harold B. Lee in 1971, says the players would have been treated differently if they were white.

"These are kids who have never had a problem and then all of a sudden they show up (at BYU) and suddenly they have problems. People are too willing to assume they are guilty because of color," President Harwell says.

"I haven't met one of these kids who was not a good kid. They have been raised well, by good black families with a lot of integrity. They're not gang-bangers, they're not street people, and yet they're seen that way just because they are black."

BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins says the Honor Code Office only responds to complaints that are made and never goes looking for violators. Race is not a factor when conducting a review, she says. "When alleged violations come to our attention, we respond," she says. "We make every effort to be fair and careful in the review."

Steve Baker, director of the Honor Code Office, told the Deseret Morning News earlier this year that most Honor Code cases do not result in time away from the university. Instead, counselors look for appropriate ways to keep the students on campus. The Honor Code Office handles between 300 and 1,000 cases a year.

"What it really gets down to is LDS athletes have a bishop that is a very big insulator between them and the university," Freeman says. "A lot of non-LDS athletes don't have anybody to talk to, and if they go to someone, they're worried they'll get turned in to the Honor Code Office."