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Five Kappas at FAMU Booked on Hazing Charges

Photo credit: Yanicka Shepherd/the Famuan (file photo) Kappa Alpha Psi members gather on the FAMU campus.

By Nicole Bardo-Colon
Black College Wire

Five Florida A&M students, all members of the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc., have been charged with hazing a student who said he was beaten so badly with canes that he has not recovered more than six weeks later.

The Leon County Sheriff's Office arrested the five on April 10 in Florida's first arrests on such charges since a June 2005 law made hazing a third-degree felony when it causes serious bodily injury.

Michael Morton

The five are Michael Morton, Brian Bowman, Marcus Hughes, Cory Gray and Jason Harris. If convicted, they could be sentenced for up to five years in prison and given a $5,000 fine. They were released on $3,500 bond each.

The five were in charge of what the fraternity calls the initiates.

The complaining student is Marcus Jones, a 20-year-old sophomore environmental science student from Decatur, Ga.

Brian Bowman

Jones' father, Mark Jones, a master sergeant in the Army, reported on March 8 that his son was beaten multiple times by members of the fraternity and underwent surgery as a result. The student "lost over a half pint of blood, has huge blisters on his right buttock, has a drainage tube in his right buttock and required 25 stitches," according to a probable cause affidavit filed by the Leon County Sheriff's Department.

County Sheriff Larry Campbell said at an April 11 news conference, "We want these young men to know that this is not a game that is being played."

Marcus Hughes

The sheriff's office held the news conference with the FAMU Police Department.

According to the 2005 statute, "A person commits hazing, a third degree felony, when he or she intentionally or recklessly commits any act of hazing . . . and the hazing results in serious bodily injury or death of such other person."

Consent of the victim is not a defense, it says.

Arrested were:

Cory Gray

• Michael Morton, 23, a business student and former FAMU senate president. He was the leader of the five, according to Det. Brice Google, lead detective in the investigation.

• Brian Bowman, a marketing and psychology student from East Oakland, Calif.

• Marcus Hughes, a 20-year-old education administration student from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

• Jason Harris

• Cory Gray, a 22-year-old economics and business administration student from Montgomery, Ala., and current president of the National Pan-Hellenic council at FAMU.

• Jason Harris, a 25-year-old pharmacy and business administration student from Tallahassee, Fla.

The students were immediately suspended once charges were filed, pending the outcome of the criminal hearing, FAMU Chief of Police Calvin Ross said. The Kappas' Alpha Xi chapter had already been suspended.

Ross added, "We look at these kids academically and we see bright kids that made stupid decisions."

Twenty-six people were subpoenaed and more arrests are anticipated. Google said he was looking into whether students perjured themselves in testimony under oath to the state's attorney.

In the probable cause affidavit, Google said he interviewed several pledges who confirmed the hazing.

Google said Antonio Carrion, one of the pledges, "stated the following: all the pledges blindfolded themselves with maxi pads and stockings, they met [in] an old abandoned warehouse, the line participated in several rituals (calls and responses) with the Kappas, the line did get hit with canes and each person got three licks each time it was their turn to get hit, there were two nights of preliminaries and two nights of official meetings where the pledges were hazed and hit with canes."

He said the Kappas involved went by nicknames: Big Daddy Go 4 Play, Daddy Swagger, Daddy Knowledge, Daddy Prototype, Daddy Young Buck and Godfather X.

Most of the detective's summary was devoted to Jones' description of the events.

"While they were whispering all these statements in his ears, several of the Kappas kept slapping him in his face, so much that he had a black eye and severe pain in his ear when he left that first night," the summary said.

"Marcus explained that at times, people were getting hit so hard that the solid wooden canes were breaking. The Kappas would pick up the broken parts of the canes and tape them together making an even thicker cane and then began hitting them with that one. Marcus stated that after a while of the Kappas taping broken pieces of canes together, one of them (the canes) would be as thick as if not thicker than a bat."

Bill Waters, attorney for Waters & Wolk and legal counsel for the five students, said, "It is our position that the threshold for probable cause is very low.

"The truth will come out that these five gentlemen were wrongly accused," Waters said, adding that his clients were not interviewed and that their side of the story has not been heard.

The students themselves have chosen not to comment.

Google said he spoke with the victim's father before the news conference.

"He is pleased with the outcome thus far. He expresses his appreciation for the FAMU Police Department and the Leon County Sheriff's Office," Google said. "His son is still recovering, but he is not out of the woods just yet. He is going to have to have another surgery. He still has a ruptured ear drum that has to be repaired."

Nicole Bardo-Colon, a student at Florida A&M University, writes for the Famuan. She can be contacted at [email protected]

Posted April 14, 2006