Tulane Fraternity Suspended, 8 Arrested After 'Hell Night' Hazing Incident

NEW ORLEANS — Ten Tulane University fraternity members faced felony charges Wednesday and the school suspended Pi Kappa Alpha following accusations that the group burned pledges with hot water and pepper spray during a "hell night" initiation.

The fraternity members face felony battery charges — punishable by up to 15 years in prison — in an alleged hazing incident in which two pledges received second- and third-degree burns from boiling water and crab boil being poured on their bodies.

"The two students were treated at a local hospital for severe burns that occurred during the hazing," Officer Gary Flot, a New Orleans police spokesman, said in a news release.

A Tulane spokesman refused to comment on the allegations or the status of the students on Wednesday, but the school issued a news release saying it had suspended its chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and would investigate.

Will the madness never cease? If it isn't teenage girls beating someone down, it frats burning people.

Why anyone would willingly submit themself to this type of abuse is beyond me.

Link

reply to post by LLoyd45

Thanks for sharing that article with me & others. That fraternity deserves to be locked up in jail. This news is very important. I appreciate your work & your help.

As a Tulane Alumna I had to laugh out loud when I read that they were burned with crab boil.

My personal experience: KA is a really old school frat...they're really into traditions and hazing happens to be one of them. I've never known it to get this out of hand before, and I think that's exactly what happened. Some old fashioned hazing fun just got a little bit out of control. Hell Week is a time honored tradition. One that participants look back on with the fondest memories as is always the case when humiliation comes from your closest friends.

I would venture a guess that this was a total accident and they didn't mean to seriously hurt anyone.

reply to post by sc2099


I'm a Tulane alumnus, too--TSSW 1995.

Perhaps you did not read the article closely enough.

The article states that two students had to be treated for second- and third-degree burns from boiling water and crab boil.

I don't find that funny. I don't think that the University, the burned students, the families, or the police find the incident funny either.

Whether hell week is a tradition or not, inflicting those kinds of injuries is criminal and should be punished.

The fraternity, commonly called PIKE, now faces allegations that members poured boiling water on the bodies of pledges and caked them with flour, crab boil, vinegar, cayenne peppers and wasabi sauce. The victims were treated at a local hospital with second- and third-degree burns, according to New Orleans police. [emphasis mine]

www.sigepblog.org...

This is nothing new for this fraternity.

The Tulane University fraternity at the center of a hazing controversy has weathered several disciplinary complaints over the past several years, including allegations of sexual assaults and drugging of female students.

In March 2006, Tulane's student government group asked university officials to investigate the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity for a litany of alleged misdeeds, following complaints from several young women that they were unwittingly drugged at the fraternity's annual bacchanal. The student group also sent a letter to the fraternity's national organization, in which the Tulane chapter is chartered.

www.sigepblog.org...

www.wdsu.com...

Google Search


[edit on 2008/5/12 by GradyPhilpott]

In fact, I did read the article. And If I were to speculate, which is what everyone else is doing by assuming that the PIKE members were purposely burning their pledges, I would speculate that they were probably just trying to scare them, holding pots of boiling water (and crab boil) over them pretending they would burn then and then it accidentally happened. Of course the article says nothing to the effect of either version and we're both just guessing.

p.s. I don't think it's funny that anyone was injured, so don't try to take some bs moral high ground on me - you don't even know me. What I think is funny is that crab boil was the modus operandi. It is funny in the way it would be funny if someone got beaten up with a dead catfish in the south where catfish is a staple. Got Irony?

[edit on 13-5-2008 by sc2099]

I'm quite capable of appreciating irony, but having suffered extensive burns twice in my life, hearing about kids getting 2nd and 3rd burns in a frat hazing incident doesn't tickle my funny bone and besides that's not irony. This is no more ironic than someone developing emphysema, lung cancer, and heart disease after living with a heavy smoker for forty years.

You apparently didn't read the material I provided, because then you would have read this:

The fraternity, commonly called PIKE, now faces allegations that members poured boiling water on the bodies of pledges and caked them with flour, crab boil, vinegar, cayenne peppers and wasabi sauce. The victims were treated at a local hospital with second- and third-degree burns, according to New Orleans police. [emphasis mine]

www.sigepblog.org...

That doesn't sound like an accident to me, but assuming that your speculated scenario is correct, just trying to scare someone by holding boiling water over them is not just criminal, it's stupid or insane.

People like that don't belong in college, they belong in jail.


[edit on 2008/5/12 by GradyPhilpott]

another Tulane alum here - class of 91. From what I read, and heard from friends still in contact with the locals, the way this thing played out was, those that were hurt by the hot water were finished but the brave (stupid?) ones who thought it best to look tough got a second dose and by that time the water was now dangerously hot.

The fraternity certainly was in the wrong, no doubt about it. What they were doing was horrific and the question that I have is, after the first guy got burned, why didn't they stop? The first one is an oops, we forgot to turn off the heat and we've now scalded a pledge. The second one is more along the lines of "we're so damned stupid we thought the first guy was a fluke and the next guy wouldn't be burned"

I pledged a fraternity and I had friends in a bunch of different ones. We all had to do some stupid stuff but true risk of physical harm was never an issue unless someone wound up with alcohol poisoning (in my fraternity that is). I heard some war stories from others that made me think there's nothing worse. The boiling water trumped eating someone else's vomit (yup, I know a guy who did that).

Originally posted by sc2099
As a Tulane Alumna I had to laugh out loud when I read that they were burned with crab boil.

You thought 2nd and 3rd degree burns are funny? I see the education portion of the college experience was wasted on you.

[edit on 12-5-2008 by CyberSEAL]

reply to post by CyberSEAL


Oh my gosh!! Do you get paid to write those jokes? Or do you tell them to the mirror and play your own rimshot in your mom's basement? I already said it was the crab boil and not the injuries that are the funny part. Try reading all the posts before heading straight to the bottom to add your own two cents.

To Grady, I think you're taking it a bit too seriously. These guys were being hazed, not tortured in the Hanoi Hilton. If they didn't want to do it they could have gotten up and left when they saw that hot water coming towards them. None of your posted articles said that the pledges were physically prevented from leaving. I still don't think that they meant to seriously injure the pledges. Why would they want to put them in the hospital? It makes no sense.

Crackeur heard it through the grape vine that one bout with the hot water was enough but some felt the need to endure more to prove something.

Since none of the myriad sources cited mentioned any sinister or sadistic motives for the burns, I'm going to stick with my original speculation that the severity of the burns was an accident.

To Grady and Crackeur, if you don't mind: Just out of curiosity, what was the cost of tuition when you graduated? I was on the website a while back and it is already $10k more per year than it was when I finished (class of 06).

reply to post by sc2099


I was on a full grant, so I don't quite know what the tuition was, as that was taken care of for me, as were my books and supplies, plus a small monthly stipend.

Five-thousand a semester comes to mind, but I'm not really sure.

I don't recall the amount but I remember Bennington broke the $20,000 mark my junior or senior year so it was less than that.

I wonder what the history of the chapter was? Was the chapter new or made up of mostly new members? Was it a chapter that for the most part always hazed, or a chapter that recently began hazing?

I was in a fraternity, and I noticed that well established chapters that had been hazing pledges for years had hazing that was relatively mild physically, but was tougher mentally. Newer chapters had hazing that was mild mentally, but tougher physically. People that have not experienced hazing think that hazing needs to be physically brutal and involve harsh things like beating people. People that have experienced hazing know that the mind tricks are the most trying part of the hazing experience. Mild physical acts coupled with mind tricks are more trying on a pledge than harsh physical acts.

For example, my fraternity (which was hazing for years) did a "pledge paddle ceremony." The ceremony went as follows. The pledge was lead blindfoled into the basement of the house. We would have a Gregorian chant record playing. The pledge was then told he was in "the pledge paddle ceremony." While the pledge was blindfolded, people would make noises like banging pots and pans, shaking baby rattles, and ringing bells. The pledge had his blindfold removed and was told to bend over. He could see the shaddow of somebody with a paddle about to take a swing at him. The person with the paddle would take a long dramatic wind up while everyobdy made noises. The pledge then was then gently touched with the paddle, and the ceremony was over.

I could imagine a newer chapter actually hitting a pledge hard and repeatedly. They might not do the mind games.

a long standing fraternity - there for years before I was there in the late 80's.

the roughest pledge stories I heard came from a friend who was a deke. He got beat up regularly and he was the unfortunate fool who ate another pledge's vomit, among other things. they were a very old fraternity but they were not recognized by Tulane at the time. I don't recall which infraction finally got them tossed off campus but there were tons of stories that would have been enough for the school to throw them out.

reply to post by GradyPhilpott


u rite was not jus fun but u got 2 b more of an asshole to let sum1 put dat hot # on any part of ur body dont jus look at the frat as bad guys cuz it anit have to happen but it did so na dey got 2 deal wit it