Dallas Hazing Trial
 

I have not seen a thread on this so here goes: Alpha Phi Alpha member at SMU went to trial on a felony Agg Assault: Found guilty yesterday and the Jury gave 10 years in jail probated for 10 years and 180 days to do as a term and condition of community supervision.
This is real folks.

Fraternity Water Prank at SMU
 

Man sentenced for fraternity water prank

DALLAS - A DeSoto man has been sentenced to six months in jail and 10 years of probation for his role in a fraternity initiation that sent a pledge into a coma.
Raymond Lee, 28, was sentenced Monday after he was convicted of aggravated assault for an off-campus incident in which fraternity pledges at Southern Methodist University were forced to drink large amounts of water.

Braylon Curry, a pledge with Alpha Phi Alpha, went into a coma after he was forced to drink the water. He later recovered and now attends Howard University.

Lee, the first of eight men to go to trial for the 2003 incident, was also fined $10,000.

http://www.tdcaa.com/dynam_iprosecresults.asp?srch=all

Original News Story - SMU Hazing Event
 

December 30, 2003


Frat Hazing: A Dangerous New Drinking Game


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsweek
December 8, 2003 issue
Frat Hazing: A Dangerous New Drinking Game

By Sarah Childress


Even as Alpha Phi Alpha pledge Braylon Curry became incoherent, fraternity members urged him to keep chugging from a gallon jug, threatening to beat him if he stopped, Curry's parents say he told them. Hours later, the Southern Methodist University junior had a seizure and was rushed to the hospital, becoming the second reported victim this year of a prank that experts worry could become a new hazing ritual.

Curry wasn't drinking whisky or beer, but water. Drinking as much as 15 liters of water in a short period of time--the body processes only six to eight in 24 hours--causes hyponatremia, a potentially fatal sodium imbalance in the body, says Dr. Kenney Weinmeister, who treated Curry at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas. (Curry has since recovered. The
fraternity's national office is investigating; local members could not be reached.) The condition is seen in marathon runners and ravers on ecstasy, who can overcompensate for their thirst.

But as hazing, "water torture" is more dangerous because fraternity members may assume that if the pledges aren't drinking alcohol, they can take drinking to the extreme with impunity, says expert Hank Nuwer. And like other hazing activities that dehumanize pledges, it's easy for members to sanction suffering in the name of brotherhood. Freshman Walter Jennings died in March after he was forced to chug water while pledging an underground fraternity at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.

A student from another Eastern school, astonished to learn about Jennings, told Nuwer that his fraternity forced its pledges to drink hot water until they vomited. That frat was disbanded, but as SMU's frustrated officials have learned, hazing's a long way from being expelled.

Copyright 2003 Newsweek

http://www.deltasigmatheta.com/hazenews/haze46.htm

great, it happened almost three years ago........who cares.

I think the issue is that the first of the (I believe it was) 8 people involved was just sentenced.

I think it's worth knowing the outcome no matter how long ago the offense took place and was reported.

Hazing
 

Yup - History tends to repeat itself and a little knowledge on some archives never hurts. ;)

Regards,

Boodleboy322

And, that is the sad part.

History to some means little.:(

i heard about this. hazing is bad man.

It may have happened 3 years ago, but it sounds like the judgment just went down. I'm all for teaching people about mistakes from the past. If you don't learn from your past then you're doomed to repeat it. It happened in my chapter.

In 1998 one of my fraternity brothers was driving drunk at speeds of up to 150 mph (he drove a 95 Camaro, much like the ones police use on highways). He hit an arrow-trailer and his car went airborne and landed on its roof. He broke his neck and was trapped in the car as it ignited. He suffered burns that included one of his corneas. He also broke his neck. To this day he is still paralyzed from the waist down as well as in his hands. He is also blind from one eye. He was 22 when the accident happened. He and I were actually pretty good friends, but I was in Albuquerque at the time for the UTEP/UNM football game. It took me a long time to work up the courage to visit him because at the time we all thought we were immortal and made of steel.

By 2002 most of us who were active then had graduated and moved on. No one ever spoke of what had happened in 1998 and the newer members had no clue who the guy who'd been in the accident even was. That's when several members went out drinking on a Monday after chapter meeting. They were at a popular campus hangout where underage drinking was the norm. One brother left before the others. Though toxicology reports were never released I personally know where he was at and why students hung out there. He had a wreck while driving down Sun Bowl Drive on campus and his car rolled at least 200 feet down the hill. It was a covertible, so there was no car roof to protect him. He died at the scene and was found a few hours later. He was only 18-years-old. The story was big news here because he was also a member of the university's cheerleading squad. I felt particularly horrible about this one because I was an alumnus by this time and he and a few others had been over at my apartment only a week before that. Perhaps if I'd helped educate the chapter about the event 4 years earlier this wouldn't have happened.

NEVER downplay the value of learning from your past. Saving only ONE life is worthwhile.

wow! someone put me in my place! im glad there are sorts of people that are ready and willing to e-haze me because its so funny! if i had cool points to give, you would be at the top of my list.

Don't be an E-Hazer!:rolleyes:

Captain Obvious
 

That Captain Obvious thing is actually pretty funny. It reminds me of the signs people around here would leave on your car if you parked too close to someone. Usually it had something along the lines of Mickey Mouse tossing the bird and saying "Thanks for parking so close. Next time leave a <expletive> canopener so I can get my car out"

My mom actually has a really old one of those.

I'd love to carry a stack of cards like that around. Bad parkers piss me off.