Baruch Hazing Death: Homicide, Other Charges Coming Against Frat Brothers Who Hazed Pledge To Death
At least five members of a Baruch College fraternity are expected to face homicide charges, and 32 other fraternity members will be facing other charges, in the brutal 2013 hazing death of a freshman pledge, the New York Daily News is reporting.
On December 8, 2013, members of Baruch College’s Pi Delta Psi fraternity were at a rented house in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, about 100 miles from Baruch’s New York City campus. One of the men present that night was Chun Michael Deng, a 19-year-old freshman who had pledged the fraternity.
Grand jury recommends charges for 37 people in fraternity pledge’s death http://t.co/gkUVHS05En pic.twitter.com/7OQr2GRZxK
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) September 15, 2015
Authorities say Deng and other pledges were subjected to a brutal hazing ritual known as the “Glass Ceiling.” During the ritual, Deng was blindfolded and made to carry a 20-pound bag of sand across the frozen ground while other fraternity members battered him. The most significant injury Deng suffered that night came when he was “speared” – that is, other members of the fraternity imitated a football formation and, with their heads lowered, tackled the victim.
Police said that fraternity members waited more than an hour to seek help as Deng lay unconscious, according to MSN. During that time, says Police Chief Chris Wagner, the members of the fraternity made an effort to cover up their crime.
“At this point, members began to hide paraphernalia and basically put the fraternity’s well-being over that of Michael Deng’s.”
Deng would later die of repeated blunt-force trauma to the head, torso, and thighs — injuries that the forensic pathologist assigned to the case described as “significant and severe.”
After Deng’s hazing death, fraternity members allegedly lied to investigators and otherwise refused to cooperate. The New York Times notes that the fraternity members’ actions are part of the reason it took two years for a grand jury to begin handing down indictments.
The first wave of indictments in the Baruch hazing death came on Tuesday, with five members of the fraternity — including fraternity president Andy Meng — charged with hazing, conspiracy, and hindering apprehension. Progressively more severe charges, including homicide, are expected against 32 other members of the fraternity in the coming days and weeks. Authorities are rolling out the indictments in increments in order to keep the court system from being overwhelmed.
Although “hazing” — that is, the process of making new members of a group, such as a band or a fraternity, undergo humiliating or dangerous rituals in order to be accepted — is illegal in 44 states and explicitly banned at most colleges and universities, it still goes on behind closed doors in many places, according to Stop Hazing. Deng family attorney Douglas Fierberg agrees.
“Too many families have been devastated as a result of fraternity hazing, with at least one student dying every year from hazing since 1970.”
As of this post, the first five individuals charged in the Baruch hazing death are making arrangements to turn themselves in.
[Image courtesy of Shutterstock/Pete Spiro]
