Excerpt from News 15
It’s been a year since 25-year-old Rustam Nizamutdinov, an international student at UL, was killed when he was hit by a vehicle while walking on the shoulder of Johnston Street.
Now, after the university suspended or put several of its fraternities on probation for hazing and other violations earlier this year, new details about the crash are surfacing.
News 15 got the accident report from that night and uncovered that the driver, who was pledging for Kappa Sigma last November, was “fatigued” at the time of the crash.
Last year, from Oct. 29 to Nov. 5, was Hell Week for Kappa Sigma pledges. Pledges were required to stay awake for almost the entire week, leaving many of them sleep-deprived. Some of them also had to be designated drivers which caused three accidents that weekend, one of which took Nizamutdinov’s life. It was around 1 a.m. on Nov. 6 when Kappa Sigma pledge Michael Gallagher Jr., fell asleep behind the wheel and hit Nizamutdinov, a utility pole, and a LUS Fiber junction box before his Toyota Tundra came to rest in a grassy area near the intersection of Johnston and Leonie streets.
Police did report that fatigue was a contributing factor but Gallagher was only given a citation for careless operation.
Despite the death of one its students and a documented case of hazing that lead to Kappa Sigma’s suspension, UL is staying tight-lipped about problems on fraternity row. To date .. the university has suspended two fraternities for various infractions and placed two others on probation.
On September 29 Dean of Students Marguarita Perez said this of the suspension of the fraternities: “Their national organization revoked their charter. You would have to address any questions to them,”
Monday, when we reached out to the university, Perez said she could not comment without approval from the UL’s Office of Communications and Marketing.
As of Tuesday morning the university has not cleared Perez to talk to us.
