Hank Nuwer, Author; Hazing Deaths Database

Here is the story link

Thanks to interviewer Sophie. She asked great questions.

By Sophie Harris

SH: More and more kids are being bul­lied at North. Could these behav­iors trans­late into more dan­ger­ous things along the road, like hazing?

HN: The idea of high school behav­iors being repli­cated in col­lege wor­ries me. In high school, actions are not always pun­ished and admin­is­tra­tors try and take things into their own hands. In one of my books, “The Haz­ing Reader,” a vic­tim of a haz­ing crime who almost died came from Bloom­ing­ton North. He was at the Uni­ver­sity of North Carolina.

SH: How many books have you writ­ten? What are they about?

HN:  I’ve writ­ten 25 books, and four are about haz­ing. I have a fifth book com­ing out in a few months. I started writ­ing about haz­ing for the Human Behav­ior mag­a­zine, a national mag­a­zine study­ing behav­ior and psy­chol­ogy. When writ­ing about it, I won­dered why the bystanders just walked by. I did inter­views with lots of experts, and it seemed that haz­ers never did their haz­ing rit­u­als one-on-one. Now it’s a lit­tle dif­fer­ent, with cyber­bul­ly­ing. Cyber­bul­ly­ing is tech­ni­cally one-on-one, through phones and face­book, but it’s got the group men­tal­ity of haz­ing because peo­ple share it with their friends.

SH: Why is it so impor­tant that we put a stop to bul­ly­ing, both in high school and college?

HN:  Hazing’s main dan­ger is alco­hol. 82% of hazing-related deaths are caused by alco­hol. Cyber­bul­ly­ing can be very dan­ger­ous because its main goal is to exclude. Preda­tors want to find your weak­ness, your inse­cu­rity, and harp on your ori­en­ta­tion or ‘lack of cool­ness,’ and ham­mer that home. There was a haz­ing case where the haz­ers wanted a pledge to drink from a bot­tle and put a gun to his head. But what they didn’t know what that this boy’s father killed him­self that way.

SH: How can bul­ly­ing in high school lead to haz­ing in college?

HN:  Bul­ly­ing in high school makes a per­son jaded. Bul­ly­ing is haz­ing. If they’ve got­ten away with bul­ly­ing in high school, it makes them think they can get away with it in col­lege. It gets out of hand. At the high school level, haz­ing is worse than ever. Haz­ing began in about the 1980’s. At the col­lege level there is much more aware­ness, and col­leges are crack­ing down on it. For the first time since 1970, in 2010 there were no haz­ing related deaths in America.

SH: What is the best advice you could give to some­one being bul­lied or hazed?

HN:  Find peo­ple that object to it, just as you do. Band together with them. Find an admin­is­tra­tor that will lis­ten, and inform your par­ents, no mat­ter how embar­rass­ing the sit­u­a­tion is. Speak out! Take notes by the hour. By the minute. Don’t exag­ger­ate, don’t make any­thing up, and don’t break the law your­self. Some peo­ple fell that they can’t step in on haz­ing if it’s not in their group. That’s not true. You can. Things can get so out of con­trol. Adults can act in a stu­pid way, and they can be really bad exam­ples for high school stu­dents. Some­times, in high school, prin­ci­pals and admin­is­tra­tors are really bad at try­ing to con­tain it.

SH: How can you see bul­ly­ing and haz­ing stop­ping, or at least lessening?

HN:  It must be taught in a no-nonsense way from kinder­garten, or even ear­lier, on. Par­ents must get involved. Adults need to act like adults. It’s some kind of soci­etal prob­lem when adults don’t take respon­si­bil­ity and obey the law. There was once a case at an Indi­ana high school near Shel­byville. There was a sit­u­a­tion, but the school admin­is­tra­tors never let it go to the police. The police never fol­lowed up on the facts. If the facts are cor­rect, kids could end up with felonies on their records. When noth­ing hap­pens, it is uncon­scionable. School admin­is­tra­tors are not the police. They should not act like police. They need to call the police, and if noth­ing hap­pens then, par­ents should band together and demand justice.

SH: Is it hard to write about hazing?

HN:  Yes, it’s still not easy, talk­ing about the loss of a human life. I can’t tell you how many girl­friends and par­ents I’ve talked to after deaths. I can’t tell you how many 911 tapes I’ve heard. For most haz­ers, a death is either a wake up call, or they whine and blame it on the victim.

This story today reminded me of the long list of camps with past hazing issues. I’m sure the good camps far outweigh the bad, but why not be diligent in selecting a camp?

Here are helpful tips.

And some from my old column.

Excerpt Pittsburgh Post Gazette

According to the suit, the Cedar Bridge Military Academy Summer Camp in Toms River, N.J., was advertised as a “private, faith-based” camp whose mission was to “foster a love of Corps, country and God by providing a vehicle for the application of leadership, strengthening character, teaching responsibility, improving self-discipline, developing an understanding of the role of our military in today’s society, and building informed and productive citizens.”

But the plaintiff, who is identified only as “M.S.,” claims that when he attended the camp in 2007 at age 12, he was subjected to relentless hazing that “exceeded all possible bounds of human decency.”

During his two-week stay at the camp, the suit says, M.S. was made to eat his own vomit, threatened with having to clean up human feces with his hands, was nicknamed “Puke Bucket” by staff and called that name by other campers and made to listen to sexually explicit stories told by camp employees and counselors.

Plaintiffs attorney Edward S. Shensky first sued Cedar Bridge and its owner, Steven Baryla, who was later indicted on charges of possessing child pornography and pleaded guilty in federal court in New Jersey. He is in prison awaiting sentencing and faces a mandatory minimum term of five years in prison, court records show.

News accounts said the criminal charges against Mr. Baryla led to the closing of the Cedar Bridge Military Academy camp.

In an amended suit, Mr. Shensky later added the Boy Scouts of America and its local chapter, the York-Adams Council, as defendants.

First: some background on this case: (Parents requested to read first. Some material is explicit in terms of the allegations).

Posted: Wednesday, December 22, 2010 9:20 am 

Office of the Prosecuting Attorney Bingham County 

This press release is intended to clarify and correct the inaccurate information set forth in the Blackfoot Morning News on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010, with the caption “Charges filed; Juvenile charged in separate BHS hazing case.” The body of the article states that “five addition juveniles have been charged with misdemeanor offenses . . .” and that “the five will be tried in juvenile court.” This press release is also intended to address other concerns with the media’s coverage of the charges involving Nathan Walker, Anthony Clarke, Logan Chidester and Tyson Katseanes.

New incident

During the investigation that centers on allegations against Walker, Clarke, Chidester and Katseanes, law enforcement discovered an incident at Blackfoot High School that involved five juveniles. This new matter appears to have been an isolated, one-time incident. It did not involve the same allegations made against Walker, Clarke, Chidester, Katseanes or the juvenile charged in relation to those same allegations. The new matter also did not involve anyone against whom charges have already been filed.

Contrary to what is stated in the Blackfoot Morning News article, no charges have been filed against the five juveniles. Law enforcement officers have completed an investigation of the particular incident involved and have forwarded this information to the Bingham County Prosecuting Attorney’s office for review. The prosecutor’s office has not made a decision on whether charges will be filed. As such, no paperwork has been filed with the court alleging any criminal conduct against any of these five juveniles.

The prosecutor’s office has been informed that law enforcement officials provided the parents of the five juveniles with a notice called a “Juvenile Violation Report.” (They are frequently referred to by  law enforcement as a “JVR”). This is not a court document. The filling out of the JVR and providing it to the parent is not “charging” the juvenile with an offense. The JVRs are provided to parents to notify them of their child’s alleged criminal conduct and to advise them that charges could be brought.

This case will be handled consistently with the handling of other juvenile cases. No special consideration will be given to it based on the existence of another case involving students of the Blackfoot High School. The people involved are different. The alleged behavior is different. The cases need to be evaluated and handled based on their own individual circumstances. With regard to juveniles, that includes consideration of whether  the incident should be referred to as a diversionary program, in lieu of the filing of a petition with the court. Such consideration is given to every case that is submitted to this office for review of possible criminal charges against a juvenile who has had no prior juvenile court record, which is the case with the five juveniles involved with this most recent matter. The prosecutor’s office will consider the ability to prove a charge, the nature of conduct involved, any sanctions imposed by other authorities, e.g. parents and/or schools, and the ability of a diversion program to hold the juvenile accountable for the offense, rehabilitate or correct their behavior, and protect society.

CNN report

CNN recently ran a piece in which the caption read “ Former high school athletes are accused of falsely imprisoning teammates and forcing them to perform sex acts.” The news reporter went on to repeat this same allegation.

A claim that the alleged victims in the existing court cases were forced to perform sex acts is not true. The complaints filed against Walker, Clarke, Chidester or Katseanes, make no such allegation. My office has all of the available police reports and has discussed the case regularly with investigating officers. There is no information that this office is aware of upon which an allegation that the victims had to perform sex acts could be based.

Hazing

This office takes that position that neither the new matter, nor the allegations involving Walker, Clarke, Chidester and Katseanes involving “hazing.” Any common usage of that word connotes a traditional ritual used to initiate a person or group. No facts involved in this new matter of the prior case fits that common understanding of the term “hazing.” I would request that the media discontinue the use of that term “hazing” to describe these incidents. It is misleading the public about the nature of the allegations.

J. Scott Andrew

Bingham County Prosecuting Attorney

Definitely worth a read for those who must deal with subrosa and rogue fraternities operating illicitly on campuses.

Excerpt from above link (well done!) :

The incident, which occurred in late 1994, involved a freshman who pledged with Delta Phi Chi, an illegal social fraternity.

According to Pierce, the initial pledging rites Duncan participated in were relatively harmless — things such as drinking hot beer or whiskey.

However, things got out of hand as the plaintiff was approached one day and told to report to the Corner House, a local hang-out of the fraternity, for “Hell Night.” Once there, he was blindfolded, put into a car and driven out to a soccer field around midnight. Fraternity members proceeded to throw the plaintiff into mud, poured beer on him and urinated on him. In addition, he was forced to drink alcohol and other unknown substances, Pierce said.

Afterwards, as Duncan believed the hazing was ending, Pierce said he was placed in the back of a vehicle and thrown around inside as the driver did “doughnuts” in the field.

Duncan was then put into the back of a pick-up truck to return to campus. Pierce said the driver used a shortcut on a rough secondary road, first driving calmly and then from side to side on the road until he lost control and hit a tree. The plaintiff was buffeted about and slammed into the side of the truck bed.

The plaintiff suffered multiple injuries, including a fractured spine, fractured ribs, a punctured lung and loss of erectile function due to urological injuries.