[hoosier]

Violence at 'Bama frat houses prompts security rule

September 20, 2004

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) -- The University of Alabama is requiring every fraternity to have a trained security guard on duty at parties.

That, after three students were injured in separate violent incidents in one weekend.



In one attack, a student from Tennessee was stabbed in the head.



Twenty-one-year-old Richard "Kirk" Wilder of Signal Mountain was reportedly helping escort two men outside after they crashed at the Sigma Nu fraternity house when it happened.



Wilder has been in a coma since the incident.



Across campus, at about the same time, a student from Atlanta was punched and kicked outside the Pi Kappa Alpha house and a student from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was assaulted outside the Theta Chi house.



Dean of Students Thomas Strong says the guards hired must be trained in security or be off-duty police officers and must be approved by the university.