Author: Hank Nuwer

Link to NY Post story

And an excerpt

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A former University of Missouri student is suing a fraternity and its parent organization over an alleged hazing incident he says left him with near-fatal alcohol poisoning while the frat already was on probation for alcohol infractions.

Brandon Zingale’s lawsuit filed Thursday in Boone County — home of the Columbia campus he attended — alleges he and other pledges of the Kappa Alpha Order’s Alpha Kappa chapter were “coerced” to participate in a September 2016 vodka-chugging contest.

After that forced binge incapacitated Zingale, then an 18-year-old freshman, he was left alone in a bedroom overnight and was found the next morning drenched in urine, “unconscious, barely breathing and unable to be awakened,” the lawsuit alleges.

When rushed by ambulance to a hospital 10 hours after the drinking stunt, Zingale still had a blood-alcohol level of .41 — five times more than the state’s legal threshold for intoxication and within the range considered lethal, according to the lawsuit.

Fraternity members “were instructed and agreed to keep the truth about what happened to Brandon from university officials, the police and Brandon’s family,” the lawsuit alleges while also claiming that Zingale was drugged against his will at least once.

That alleged hazing came roughly two weeks after the fraternity already had been placed on semester-long probation for illegally providing alcohol to minors. The university suspended the fraternity the next month, then weeks later barred it from officially being recognized on campus for five years, citing repeated conduct violations that included Zingale’s case. The ban prohibits the fraternity from campus activities and access to some university amenities, including auditoriums and meeting rooms.

Zingale withdrew from the university shortly after the incident and has enlisted in the military, according to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages and also names three members of the fraternity, including its president at the time.

Here is the link to the story

Excerpt

report detailing a private attorney’s investigation into Ooltewah High School states a “culture of hazing” existed on the school’s basketball team, and head coach Andre “Tank” Montgomery knew “excessive horseplay” was taking place before a freshman on the team was raped, allegedly by three of his teammates.

Following the sexual assault, the report states that the school’s former Principal Jim Jarvis and former Athletic Director Allard “Jesse” Nayadley failed to appropriately handle the situation.

The Hamilton County Board of Education commissioned Courtney Bullard, a local private attorney with experience in Title IX compliance, to investigate the school in March following the rape, and voted Thursday night to release the findings.  Previously the report was sealed under attorney-client privilege.

Bullard states in the report that she interviewed more than 40 people, 15 of which are basketball players, and found that bullying was taking place before the team’s trip to Gatlinburg where the assault occurred, just days before Christmas.

“Racking in”

Players told Bullard that “racking in” occurred on the team prior to the trip, and described it as upperclassmen turning off the lights in the locker room and punching freshman with their fists from the neck down, according to the report.

“Many players described “racking in” as horseplay or “boys being boys.” This description is indicative of a desensitization and minimization of the behavior and a lack of education on what conduct constitutes hazing,” the report states.

“Players did not report the behavior because they did not want to be a “snitch” and they did not want it to get worse,” the report continues.

Bullard states in the report that this bullying “created an environment within the school that had the potential to interfere with the victims’ educational environment. Moreover, there is a high likelihood that the behavior would have continued had the Gatlinburg incident not happened.”

The report states that the school’s administrators, parents and players described the basketball team’s head coach Andre “Tank” Montgomery as a good man, but some also said he behaved “more as a friend than an authority figure.”

The team’s volunteer assistant coach Karl Williams was considered to be more of the disciplinarian on the team, according to the report.

The report states that players never explicitly told administrators or coaches about “racking in,” but that “it is difficult to believe, that at a minimum, Mr. Montgomery was not aware of excessive horseplay occurring in the locker room.”

Hamilton County District Attorney Neal Pinkston has charged Montgomery with four charges of failure to report child sexual abuse.  Williams faced the same charges, but they were later dropped.

The assault

A culture of sexual assault was not found to exist on the team, according to the report, and there was not evidence that Hamilton County Department of Education or Ooltewah High School administrators knew or should have known such incidents would occur in Gatlinburg.

During the sexual assault, older players on the team intentionally placed a pool cue against the freshman’s rectum, the report states.

After learning about what happened, Jarvis and Nayadley “failed to take appropriate measures” to handle the situation and did not notify the families of the freshman.  They also allowed the team to play the next day, the report states.

Jarvis made the decision allowing the boys to continue playing in the tournament, which was largely based on reports he received from Nayadley, according to the report.

“Mr. Nayadley felt the players were ready to play and wanted to play,” the report states.  “None of the players interviewed stated that they wanted to play.”

Bullard said by not contacting parents and allowing the team to play, Jarvis and Nayadley “failed to take appropriate measure to address the effects of the hazing, bullying and sexual harassment of the freshmen players.”

Read the whole story here by Erin Jordan, Gazette

Excerpt

IOWA CITY — Nearly 8 percent of University of Iowa student-athletes surveyed last year said they witnessed or were subject to bullying or hazing by their coach, and nearly one-quarter said they would not approach their coach with concerns about the team.

Summaries of student-athlete surveys, obtained by The Gazette through an open records request, shed light on an athletics department that in May paid $6.5 million to settle legal cases that included court testimony about how Hawkeye coaches treat their players.

Go right to the survey

Read the whole story here

And an excerpt from the Greenville online

Moderator:  My position is that the Tucker Hipps case should be on the public record. I vehemently object to efforts by defendant Sam Carney to seal critical documents.

The settlement was reached after extensive mediation in the case, according to court documents filed electronically Wednesday with the Pickens County Courthouse.

The amount of the settlement was not disclosed in legal documents and still has to be approved by a judge, according to court records.

Hipps, a 19-year-old Clemson University sophomore and fraternity pledge, was found dead near the S.C. 93 bridge hours after going on a run with about 30 members of the fraternity on Sept. 22, 2014.

His parents, Cindy and Gary Hipps, filed a wrongful death lawsuit and a survival action seeking $25 million from the defendants in March 2015. The two cases were consolidated earlier this year.

Tucker Hipps, a Wren High School graduate from Piedmont, was president of his fraternity’s pledge class before he died. Because of that, requests from fraternity brothers were routed through him.

According to lawsuits filed by his parents, the run Hipps went on the day he died was organized by fraternity leaders Sam Carney, Thomas Carter King and Campbell Starr, the three students named in the lawsuit.

Hipps was asked before the run to bring 30 McDonald’s biscuits and 2 gallons of chocolate milk to the fraternity members, according to the lawsuit. The failure to bring breakfast led to a confrontation between Hipps and King that happened on or near the bridge, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuits allege that Hipps was forced to walk a narrow railing on the bridge over Lake Hartwell by members of the fraternity.

He died of head injuries that Oconee County Coroner Karl Addis said were consistent with having hit his head on rip rap rocks in shallow water below.

The Oconee County Sheriff’s Office has investigated the case and has received assistance from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. No criminal charges have been filed in the case.

In a court filing related to the civil cases, an attorney for Carney has filed a motion to seal certain documents in the case. Those documents Carney seeks to have sealed include excerpts from the deposition of a forensic pathologist.

Carney is the son of the Delaware governor…

Read the whole story here from Trib Live:

Authorities in Somerset County say the Homestead-based Steel Valley Midget Football Association ran a football camp in Laurel Hills State Park last month that allowed and encouraged hazing and physical abuse.

Somerset District Attorney Lisa Lazzari-Strasiser said “Camp Ruffhouse,” which ran for 11- to 14-year-olds from July 7-12, first came to police attention when park-goers reported that an 11-year-old camper was being assaulted along a park road by two older campers. He told officers he was running away from the camp because of abuse from other campers and “mistreatment” by coaches, Lazzari-Strasiser said.

Another camper’s family contacted police after he came home from camp with a black eye and swollen lip, reporting that the younger players were routinely hazed by the older ones.

“Both juveniles report that camp staffers were told about the chronic abuse…but the problems were never addressed,” Lazzari-Strasiser said. “Rather, they report that campers who complained were called snitches, told by coaches to hit their aggressors back, and even punished by being made to run laps or stand in the middle of hitting drills.”

The District Attorney’s Office filed two counts each of endangering the welfare of childen, a third-degree felony, against Steel Valley Midget Football Association Director Aaron Knight, Executive Director Loren Ford and Camp Director/Leader Michael Todd.

The charges were filed with Magisterial District Judge Sandra Stevanus Wednesday. Court documents showed Knight and Todd had been arraigned and released on $75,000 unsecured bonds, but Ford’s paperwork did not yet show his status as of late Wednesday morning.

The District Attorney’s Office noted that the football association wouldn’t give investigators a list of campers, so investigators are asking anyone with information who attended the camp to contact Laurel Hill State Park rangers at 814 445 7725 and ask for Officer Peck.