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Criminal Charges for 13 in Florida A&M Hazing Death

By ROBBIE BROWN
Published: May 2, 2012

ORLANDO, Fla. — Thirteen people were criminally charged on Wednesday with hazing in the death of a Florida A&M University marching band member who was beaten after a football game last fall.

Of those charged in the death of the band member, Robert Champion, 11 were charged with felonies and 2 with misdemeanors, said Lawson Lamar, the state attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida, in a news conference here. More than 20 people will also face misdemeanor charges in the hazing of other students at Florida A&M, he said.

The Champion case is one of the largest criminal cases ever built on a hazing death, legal experts say. Prosecutors would not say whether all of the suspects are fellow students.

“Hazing is something that will continue to happen out of sight until a student like Robert Champion pays the ultimate price,” Mr. Lamar said.

Police officers across the state are working to arrest the suspects, who have not been identified. A charge of felony hazing carries up to six years in prison.

The case, which turned a national spotlight on hazing within elite marching bands, grew out of a beating that Mr. Champion, 26, received in Orlando on Nov. 19 after a football game against a rival school, Bethune-Cookman University. Prosecutors said Mr. Champion was beaten, kicked and suffocated by fellow band members during a hazing ritual aboard a bus.

Under a tradition known as “Crossing Bus C,” students would walk down the aisle of the bus while classmates punched them. Mr. Champion was found lifeless on the bus and pronounced dead at a hospital.

Florida passed a strict antihazing law in 2005 after a college student drowned during a fraternity event. The law makes it easier for prosecutors to treat hazing as a felony.

The Champion family had hoped for the state to bring murder or manslaughter charges, said their lawyer, Christopher M. Chestnut. “This is bittersweet for them,” he said. “They were hoping for more severe charges.”

That would have been a legal challenge, said George R. Dekle, a law professor at the University of Florida. With so many students participating in the hazing, he said, it would be difficult to persuade jurors that one person’s actions caused Mr. Champion’s death, as a murder charge requires.

Mr. Chestnut said he planned to sue the university and possibly the band director. The family has already sued the company that owns the bus, saying the driver stood by while hazing took place.

The university said in a statement that it was working to prevent another tragedy. It has formed an antihazing committee and designated a $50,000 grant for faculty members to research the nature and extent of hazing on campus.

Mr. Champion, a clarinet player from Decatur, Ga., had dreamed since high school of attending Florida A&M, a 13,000-student historically black university in Tallahassee.

The school’s famed band, known as the Marching 100, has performed at Super Bowl halftime shows and President Obama’s inauguration. Mr. Champion tried out twice before being selected as one of six drum majors in 2010.

His death resulted from “blunt force trauma” that caused hemorrhaging and left deep bruises on his chest, arms, shoulders and back, according to a medical examiner’s report.

His parents say he was beaten so severely because he had voiced concerns about the band’s hazing culture. They also say he was bullied because he was gay.

Since Mr. Champion’s death, Florida A&M has faced a series of reports of abuse and hazing.

In December, three band members were arrested and charged with beating a female classmate so severely that her thigh was broken and she had blood clots in her legs. And last month, two music professors resigned after being accused of participating in hazing fraternity pledges in 2010.

The university has suspended the band and said it might not perform during this fall’s football season.

The band’s director, Julian White, was initially fired and then placed on paid administrative leave.

The case has raised awareness at universities across the country that hazing can bring criminal and legal repercussions, said Susan Lipkins, a psychologist who specializes in college hazing.

“It’s getting more common to see these issues handled in court,” she said. “Universities have turned a blind eye for a long time. But they can no longer afford to do that.”

© 2012 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/us/13-charged-in-hazing-death-at-florida-am.html