Penn State hazing initiation leads to death

[Boris13c]

Frat brothers treated teen 'like road kill' in Penn State hazing death, parents say

READINGTON, N.J. — For the family of Timothy Piazza, the 19-year-old township resident who died after hazing at a Penn State fraternity on Feb. 4, the death of their son, brother and boyfriend was "murder."

In a series of emotional interviews with network morning news shows Monday, the distraught family came forward with their grief and anger over the events at Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

"This was not boys being boys," Jim Piazza told CBS Morning News. "This was murder."

"They (the fraternity brothers) treated him like road kill, a rag doll," Piazza told Today.

"They killed him," he said.

Eighteen members of the fraternity have been charged in connection with the pledging incident at Penn State. They are facing charges as serious as involuntary manslaughter and hazing to providing alcohol to minors.

The Piazza family focused their outrage on the 12 hours that passed between their son falling down a flight of stairs while undergoing "The Gauntlet," an initiation ritual where pledges are "force-fed" alcohol, to when a call for help was finally made in the morning.

"I think the individuals involved clearly bear the most responsibility," Jim Piazza said on Good Morning America. "If you read the timeline of what happened, they set out to feed these guys lethal amount of alcohol from the outset. There was intent there right from the beginning."

According to a grand jury report, a doctor calculated that Piazza's blood alcohol content at the time he fell down the stairs was between .28 and .36 percent. The legal limit for driving while intoxicated is .08 percent.

The report also said that doctors concluded Piazza suffered from "multiple traumatic brain injuries," including a fractured skull, and a lacerated spleen, which resulted in 80 percent of his blood supply in his abdominal cavity.

Efforts by the fraternity brothers to revive him after the fall were unsuccessful and, the Piazza family said, could have caused more injuries.

No one from Penn State or the fraternity came to Timothy Piazza's wake or funeral, the father said.

[Otis Day]

Never understood hazing to be honest with you. Bunch of insecure people trying to get others to do shit so they can feel better. Never was into the fraternity bullshit because of that.

[mmmc_35]

Have you heard of "elephant walking"? Either had I until I heard about this. Once you Google it ask wtf.

[southdakbearfan]

Well, I was in a fraternity and I won't say some level of hazing didn't happen, it did, but it was mostly just messing with the mind stuff. No drinking, no "elephant walks". Seriously, I would have kicked the shit out of someone for suggesting it. We had serious rules against drinking during initiation, actually one active got expelled from the fraternity for being drunk during it.

We also knew the drill, every frat got lumped in with the idiots. When the date rape drug got in the national news the local news showed a picture of our house (which we sued and won for slander/libel whichever it was), even though we were always working with habitat for humanity, blood drives and such.

But, it was a college of working class smart kids, not rich privileged kids that had to dream up something super stupid for kicks.