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I'm including the article on this incident from channel 4 news as well...
This incident has utterly terrified me... I work in a position at my campus where I assist a director of student organizations (particularly IFC, NPC, and other GLOs), and I assist in the prosecution for hazing incidents... But this has made me realize just how easy my job really is...
I feel horrible for the members of AKA nationwide, including my own campus, who will be to no doubt affected by this. Another director of student orgs in my office is an alum. of AKA and I can't possibly imagine what she will have to say tomorrow when she comes in to work... I don't know- I guess the hazing is never going to end, which means the stereotyping of GLOs in general will never end, and the bad name will never end, so long as things like this happen... why even do this??
Carol
Gamma Phi Beta- Delta Lambda- UC Riverside
"I'm a little Gamma Phi, Delta Lambda, Riverside. Everybody smiles at me, that is why I'm a G Phi B!"
Mother: Sorority Hazing May Have Caused Drowning
Victim Attended Cal State Los Angeles
UPDATED: 4:58 p.m. PDT September 10, 2002
LOS ANGELES -- Two women who drowned during a nighttime beach visit may have been undergoing a sorority hazing, the mother of one victim said Tuesday.
Kenitha Saafir, 24, of Compton and Kristin High, 22, of Los Angeles were pulled to shore in Playa del Rey by police officers but pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.
High, a California State University, Los Angeles, student and mother of a 2-year-old son, had been undergoing an initiation rite for the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, her mother, Pat Fargas, told reporters.
"She's crying back from her death to say 'stop this hazing,' " Fargas said.
Fargas alleged the women had been undergoing initiation rituals for weeks. They'd been pushed into the water blindfolded and with their hands tied, according to a local station.
"I tried to talk to all of them this weekend and said 'stop it, and I'm gonna call and report this,' and now it's too late," she said.
Police said they could not immediately confirm the account.
Uniformed officers were sent to a Playa del Rey beach at about 11:30 p.m. Monday after reports of women screaming, Officer Eduardo Funes said in a statement.
The officers were met by four people who said that two of their friends "were swept into the ocean and had not come out," Funes said.
The officers removed their leather belts and boots and dove into the ocean in heavy surf, located the women and pulled them out.
Attempts by the officers and paramedics to revive them failed.
The sorority had no information on the incident, Executive Director Betty James said from its Chicago headquarters.
"The sorority expresses its condolences to the families and will cooperate with authorities in their investigation," she said.
Alpha Kappa Alpha has an anti-hazing policy adopted two years ago by the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Inc., which includes representatives of nine historically black fraternities and sororities.
The policy calls for holding people who engage in hazing "personally liable to the victim and to answer to the law and the organization," according to the Alpha Kappa Alpha Web site.
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