Hazing

BLACK ACTIVIST H. Rap Brown spoke a truth Americans didn't want to hear in 1967 when he said, ''Violence is as American as cherry pie.''The blood pinning of paratrooper wings on young men who successfully completed training in an elite Marine Corps unit is proof that hazing is as American as apple pie.It's not that Americans should be violent. Neither should we haze. We do it because it's in our nature.We can deplore violence until the cows come home, but there's no denying that there's little that Americans love more.

Because of a hazing incident, the Vanderbiltwomen's lacrosse team has withdrawn from the Navy Fall Invitational, where it was scheduled to play Oct. 13, according to a spokesperson in the school's athletic department. The Commodores were required by the department to miss one scheduled contest as a penalty. The sanction will not have an impact on Vanderbilt's 2013 season. Based on an internal departmental review, Vanderbilt determined its varsity women's tennis and women's lacrosse teams recently engaged in separate events that rise to the level of hazing.

UPPER MARLBORO -- The long-delayed trial of 24 members of a University of Maryland College Park fraternity accused of hazing was postponed yesterday because the attorney for most of the defendants was in Baltimore defending city Comptroller Jacqueline F. McLean.William H. Murphy Jr. asked for a delay during a conference call in the chambers of District Judge Thurman H. Rhodes.The trial, which has now been postponed three times, was rescheduled for tomorrow.The 24 members of Omega Psi Phi fraternity were charged in May 1993 with beating six new members during initiation.

Although a Charlottesville, Va., jury found one man - athlete George Huguely V - criminally responsible for the beating death of Yeardley Love, his former girlfriend and fellow lacrosse player at the University of Virginia, the young woman's mother wants to hold his coaches culpable, too. Sharon Love, of Cockeysville, filed a $29.5 million civil suit this month against the state of Virginia, which operates the university; the school's athletic...

The University of Maryland athletic department is investigating allegations of hazing and underage drinking by members of the men's and women's lacrosse teams, The Diamondback, the student newspaper, reported in yesterday's editions. An athletic department official told the paper that an e-mail had been received, saying violations had occurred. Athletic department officials questioned players and coaches on both teams last week, executive senior associate athletic director Kathy Worthington told the paper.

Lauren Paul (McDonogh), who won a Division III national championship as the women's lacrosse coach at Franklin & Marshall, has been fired by the Lancaster, Pa., school after an investigation into a hazing complaint. Paul was dismissed Tuesday, and a group of junior and senior players was suspended for the rest of the season for planning and carrying out the hazing, which occurred last year, Kent Trachte , the school's dean, wrote in a letter sent to members of the college community.

A lawsuit against the McDonogh School by a former student who was bound and abused in a March 1994 hazing incident was dismissed in midtrial yesterday by a Baltimore County judge.Before the case was abruptly ended, John Richard Working, who was a freshman at the time and a son of the school's football coach, told the Circuit Court jury of the hazing and his subsequent anxiety attacks.He said he was called to a McDonogh senior's hotel room in Orlando the last night of a preseason practice trip with the school's baseball team.

The mother of a 16-year-old student at the McDonogh school filed a $1 million lawsuit yesterday, charging that the school allowed her son to be humiliated by upper classmen who tied, gagged and doused him with urine in a hazing ritual.As a result of the hazing, the student, John Working, and his brother Michael severely beat one of the upperclassmen in a retaliatory attack, police said. Both the Workings were charged with assault and were dismissed from McDonogh.Their mother, Carole Working, contended in the lawsuit that the 121-year-old private school condones hazing among students.

The suspension of a campus fraternity during an investigation of alleged hazing and injuries to pledges was announced yesterday by the University of Maryland at College Park.Omega Psi Phi's suspension was prompted by an anonymous letter sent to university officials and police, as well as area news organizations.The letter named victims of alleged beatings as well as the "big brothers" of the fraternity who the writer said were responsible for the assaults."The university police immediately began an investigation which may result in the filing of criminal and/or campus disciplinary charges as the facts warrant," Dr. William L. Thomas Jr., the campus vice president for student affairs, said in a prepared statement.

UPPER MARLBORO -- Twenty-three members of a University of Maryland fraternity charged with beating new members avoided trial yesterday, with most of them agreeing to do community service.As part of the plea bargain, the 23 members of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity chapter at College Park must apologize to the would-be member who reported the beatings and pay his medical bills.Hazing charges against 16 fraternity members were placed on an inactive docket while each of them performs community service.

Lauren Paul (McDonogh), who won a Division III national championship as the women's lacrosse coach at Franklin & Marshall, has been fired by the Lancaster, Pa., school after an investigation into a hazing complaint. Paul was dismissed Tuesday, and a group of junior and senior players was suspended for the rest of the season for planning and carrying out the hazing, which occurred last year, Kent Trachte , the school's dean, wrote in a letter sent to members of the college community.

Prince George's County police have charged seven University of Maryland, College Park sorority sisters with assaulting and hazing a pledge during initiation in October. The student told police that she was assaulted by current or former members of Zeta Phi Beta sorority on at least three occasions, according to charging documents. Those charged are: Bridget Blount, 24; Monika Young, 23; Zakiya Shivers, 26; Tymesha Pendleton, 26; Kandyce Jackson, 20; Amber Bijou, 22; and Montressa Hammond, 24. Most of the women are scheduled to appear in court Thursday morning.

A shooting incident at Johns Hopkins Hospital today provided a vivid illustration of the difficulty officilals have in putting out a consistent message at a time when events are unfolding quickly. Shortly after the shooting of a physician at the medical complex just before noon, the city police and Hopkins administration were putting out seemlingly contradictory staements about access to the complex. The police statement, delivered on Twitter, said the incident had been contained and encouraged those with business at Hopkins to come to the medical center.

Even as a proposal to legalize medical marijuana emerges in Maryland, a backlash over the burgeoning industry has developed in other states - and is likely to influence legislation here. Last week, the Los Angeles City Council tried to rein in the growth of marijuana dispensaries, limiting the number to 70 and imposing tight restrictions on where and how they can operate. And in Colorado, towns are trying to shutter some of the hundreds of dispensaries that have popped up. But supporters of the Maryland proposal say they have learned from problems in states that approved use of the drug without uniform regulations on the dispensaries providing it. The result, they say: Maryland's measure could be among the most stringent in the nation.

We arrived in San Diego late Saturday evening, Oct. 20. The next morning, we were able to get to Mission Beach for a quick swim in the Pacific Ocean and enjoy a short trip up the highway to La Jolla, Calif., where we noted a strange odor, like a big campfire. The ride back to our resort in Escondido, Calif., was a smoke-filled adventure until we were about 10 miles from our destination and the skies returned to being blue and beautiful. We were advised the following day to stay in the resort, where all was safe with clean air and plenty to do. But Tuesday morning at 6:30, there was a pounding at our door.

1905: courts-martial on plebe hazing Hazing plebes at the U.S. Naval Academy is not a new issue, but it came to public light at least 100 years ago, when Congress and the Navy banned the practice. The hazing got so rough a century ago at Christmastime that a series of courts-martial of several upperclassmen began Dec. 28, 1905, when Trenmore Coffin Jr. was tried on the charge of hazing Jerdone P. Kimbrough. But the court-martial of Stephen Decatur Jr., a senior charged in the same case, made the most waves.

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- They skated with abandon, these University of Vermont hockey players. After a disappointing record last year, they took to the ice this season with the hope that their teamwork would lead to a string of victories and a bid for the playoffs. But soon after the Catamounts played their first league games, the X-rated details of a preseason hockey team party embroiled the university in a hazing scandal. University athletic officials were accused of not doing enough to try and stop the Big Night party, despite a warning that rookie team members would be ordered to consume excessive amounts of alcohol.

State police began serving arrest warrants yesterday to 11 University of Maryland, Eastern Shore students on assault charges stemming from caning in a hazing ritual that resulted in the hospitalization of five fraternity pledges.Troopers had arrested four of the men by last night, said Capt. Greg Shipley, a police spokesman.The 11 being sought, members of the Kappa Alphi Psi fraternity, are charged with first-degree assault, hazing and reckless endangerment.The assault charge is punishable by up to 25 years in prison, Shipley said.

AT THE RELATIVELY new juvenile holding tank at the Baltimore Juvenile Justice Center, where the staff is supposedly freshly trained in best practices and state law, children have been badly, apparently illegally, treated. At the well-established Alfred D. Noyes Children's Center in Rockville, there are new reports of the old, familiar "fight clubs," as well as allegations that a staffer ran a gang -- with shame and physical abuse as hazing -- in one of the units. Apparently, not much has changed as the Ehrlich administration rolls into its third year of juvenile justice "reform."

A troubled fraternity at the University of Maryland, College Park had its national charter revoked last week and its members were ordered to leave their house on Fraternity Row by Friday because of hazing and underage-drinking incidents. Members of the university's Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter were suspended from the fraternity after a member filed a complaint with the university's Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life that triggered an investigation into hazing allegations, the Diamondback student newspaper reported Friday.