Author: Hank Nuwer

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Newly released 911 calls capture the desperate scene as Florida State Universityfraternity brothers struggled to revive a pledge who died of alcohol poisoning in November.

Police said Andrew Coffey, 20, a junior from Pompano Beach, died of alcohol poisoning after attending at Pi Kappa Phi party.

“So there we had a party last night and my friend passed out on the couch on his side. His lips are purple, his body is extremely stiff, and I can’t wake him up,” the caller told the dispatcher. “And honestly, I don’t feel a pulse.”

The dispatcher instructs the caller to perform chest compressions on Coffey, urging him to count with her as ambulances raced to the fraternity house.

“We’re going to do this until help can take it over. I need you to count out loud so I can count with you,” the dispatcher said.

Nine men are facing hazing charges in connection with the death.

A Leon County grand jury last month said that it saw enough evidence for criminal charges but that the investigation was not complete. It left the decision about charges up to the state attorney’s office or a future grand jury.

According to grand jury testimony, a fellow FSU fraternity pledge found Coffey unresponsive at the party, but instead of calling immediately 911, the pledge contacted other members of the fraternity.

“The brothers, pledges, and officers were more concerned about getting in trouble than they were about trying to save Coffey’s life,” the grand jury said.

After Coffey’s death, FSU President John Thrasher suspended all Greek life and banned alcohol at all recognized student organization events. Pi Kappa Phi’s national office has closed the FSU chapter. This week, Thrasher reinstated Greek life on campus although a ban on alcohol remains in effect.

The grand jury did find that although Coffey’s alcohol consumption was not physically forced, an environment of hazing existed that culminated in his death. The fraternity’s “Big Brother Night” party, which was held at an off-campus home, encouraged binge drinking.

Here is the link and an excerpt

Evelyn Piazza wears a heart-shaped pendant around her neck. It has her son Timothy’s thumb print on it. When she runs her finger across it she says it’s like holding his hand.

Piazza’s son was a sophomore at Penn State last year, when he died from injuries suffered after fraternity hazing rituals. Now she dreads the days leading up to the first anniversary of Timothy’s death on Sunday.

“It’s going to be a rough three days because each day is going to be, ‘This is the day that he was hazed and got hurt.’ ‘This is the day that we spent in the hospital — that nightmare.’ And, ‘This is the day that he died,'” Piazza says while sitting in her Readington, N.J. home.

“You don’t send your child off to school thinking they could come home in a casket,” Jim Piazza says.

“One of the things we’d like to do is look at legislation across the country and see if we can influence legislation in states that may not have significant or any hazing laws whatsoever,” Jim says. Working collectively, he says the families hope they can bring even more attention to the country’s hazing problem.

Much of what happened to 19-year-old Timothy at the Penn State Chapter of Beta Theta Pi fraternity was caught on surveillance cameras.

Prosecutors say pledges were run through something called “the gauntlet.” They drank large amounts of alcohol very quickly. As NPR previously reported, Piazza was given 18 drinks in 82 minutes.

At around 11 p.m. Timothy fell head-first down a flight of stairs. He was moved to a couch where he stayed for a few hours. Then prosecutors say he stumbled around the house before again falling down the same stairs. His new fraternity brothers didn’t call for help until about 12 hours after the first fall.

THE TWO-WAY

4 Ex-Fraternity Members Sentenced In Pledge’s Hazing Death

Some of the fraternity brothers were charged with crimes — ranging from involuntary manslaughter to aggravated assault and hazing. But a new Centre County district attorney was sworn in late last year and he has forwarded the case to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro because of an unspecified conflict. Shapiro’s office says the case is still under review.

The Piazza case has brought new attention to the hazing issue.

Elizabeth Allan, professor of higher education at the University of Maine, studies how prevalent hazing is and how to prevent it. She defines hazing as, “Any activity expected of someone joining or participating in a group that humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers them regardless of a person’s willingness to participate.”

Allan surveyed college students and found many of them don’t even know that they have experienced hazing.

“When we asked students what they had experienced in order to become a member of their club, team or organization, 55 percent reported behaviors that would meet the definition of hazing,” Allan says. But only about 1-in-10 of those students said they had been hazed.

Here is the link and an excerpt

On one October night last fall, the newest members of the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity at Washington State University were allegedly told to line up in the “party room,” with their knees and nose touching the wall. The lights went dark. Pillowcases were put over their head. Forty-ounce bottles of Hurricane malt liquor were tied to their hands.

Finish the bottles, the members were told, and they’d be let off the wall. It was a game they called “Edward Forty-Hands.”

The alleged incident described above is one of several allegations of hazing at the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity found in WSU student conduct records obtained by the Inlander.The investigation, by the university and the fraternity’s national headquarters, eventually led to the frat being shut down in December. Until now, the specifics of the alleged hazing have not been made public.

The university, in October, began investigating several incidents that took place starting near the beginning of the first semester. Two new fraternity members had been hospitalized — one in August 2017 for alcohol poisoning, and one in October with a concussion. The investigative records also described how the fraternity would take the belongings of new members and force them against the wall to berate them, force them to do wall sits, or tape alcohol to their hands for them to drink.

Those initial allegations were all confirmed to be true, WSU dean of students Kathy MacKay says. In December, days before the fraternity was shuttered, members “admitted to everything,” she says. MacKay says what was concerning was that upperclassmen pressured new, underage members into drinking and they used physical restraint.

“This was clearly hazing,” MacKay tells the Inlander.

On Aug. 20, the last night of rush week — when fraternities recruit students — one upperclassman at AKL heard about a new member who was sick. The upperclassman walked into the bathroom, according to the upperclassman’s account of the incident, and found the new member “flopping” around, “vomiting and throwing his upper body around while staying seated.”

The upperclassman took him to the hospital, and the new member was released by early the next morning. (In the records provided to the Inlander through a public records request, names of students were redacted.)

Many of the incidents alleged to be hazing took place in what the frat called the “party room.” There, records say, new members were lined up against the wall and yelled at, forced to do wall sits and finish bottles of beer.

When they did “Edward Forty-Hands,” one new member reported that his hand was taped to another member’s hand with a bottle in between. Each person had another bottle taped to their free hand. They were told to finish all three bottles between the two of them.

At least once, the upperclassmen dumped out bean bags and made the new members clean all of it up while taped to one other person. In another incident, a new member had his finger burned by an upperclassman’s lighter used to illuminate the dark party room, according to records.

In early October, days before WSU launched their investigation of hazing, a new fraternity member, after drinking, fell out of his bed and got a concussion. He was taken to the hospital.

WSU officials interviewed dozens of people in its investigation. Initially, members said they didn’t feel like any of it was hazing, records show. One investigator noted that a member “didn’t think what we were doing was wrong,” that it was “not meant with malicious intent,” and instead was supposed to be about teaching accountability. He said the “definition of hazing has become muddy.” Even a couple victims told university investigators that they didn’t feel like it was hazing.

Nearly all the fraternity members initially told investigators that nobody was forced to drink. “There’s the door,” for anyone who chose not to, one member said. Consistently, they told investigators that they didn’t know where the underage members got the alcohol they were drinking.

But despite what they may have said, MacKay says new fraternity members still were pressured into drinking.

“The upperclassmen were pressuring new members to do this,” she says. “In these situations, there’s not really a way for them to say no.”

The frat was put on interim suspension in mid-October. The fraternity’s national chapter was involved in their own investigation and said there would be repercussions.

“What was done was not bonding or character building,” wrote Jeremy Slivinski, CEO of the fraternity, in an email to members of WSU’s AKL chapter. “Instead it was abusive and a demonstration as to why fraternities are viewed poorly in this day and age. Brothers don’t hurt each other to prove or receive a demonstration of loyalty.”

By December, MacKay says, the fraternity members at WSU had changed their tune. No longer denying the allegations, they agreed to a “negotiated resolution,” MacKay says. Less than a week later, the national headquarters of the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity sent out a press release announcing WSU’s chapter had closed for “various potential risk management violations,” without sharing any details.

The AKL frat revoked the charter, and WSU took away the frat’s affiliation from the university. The AKL frat had a 90-year history at the university, the press release said.

“Closing a chapter is never an easy or ideal situation however student safety is a priority for both the Fraternity and the University,” the press release said. (Slivinski, the frat’s CEO, says he cannot provide any additional information for this article.)

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