Posted on 05/04/2012 2:31:16 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
There was no single blow, stomp or strike to Robert Champion's bruised and battered body that killed him as he was pummeled by fellow Florida A&M University marching band members during a hazing ritual aboard a charter bus last fall.
Instead, his death was caused by multiple blows from many individuals. That inability to pinpoint which blow ultimately caused the 26-year-old drum major's death led authorities to charge 13 defendants Wednesday with hazing rather than more serious counts like manslaughter or second-degree murder.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.cbsnews.com ...
Why did in Champion's case did it result in death? Would it be outrageous to think that the punches Champion got were more brutal and of a more fierce nature because he was gay?
Nowhere in the article does it mention that FAMU is a black college. Gee, I wonder why there was no mention of that.
Getting killed for being a homosexual is no different than getting killed for money—the presentation of the motive by prosecutors serves only to help make the accused appear more likely to have done the crime—no more no less.
Anything else is pure politics.
I agree that someone should be charge with at the very least manslaughter. Some of the officials that looked the other way should also face charges.
Hazing like this must be stopped. Make examples out of EVERYONE involved and all so called adults that knew this was going on and did nothing. I hope the bus driver that was part of this gets charged too.
FAMU has many problems.
Financial managers and presidents at the school have been let go due to illegalities or ineptness.
Administration officials have known for years of the hazing there within the band. Obviously they failed to take it seriously enough.
yes its outrageous to think his being gay had anything to do with it
Black on black crime. Maybe 6 yrs IF found guilty.
“Affirmative action” manslaughter reduced to “hazing”???
HE’S DEAD!!!
Or maybe just Tray-vonned a little too much.
“manslaughter reduced to “hazing”
Any other sentence would be racist. Don’t you know there are already too high a persentage of blacks in jail?/s
According to the father, there are 400 other band members. Is that right?
I’ve read about this incident a few times over the past weeks.
I have always understood Hazing to be something inflicted by senior members of a group onto new members.
A Drum Major is THE leader of the band, not a new recruit.
I would love to understand better what was happening here.
Happy, I agree 10,000%.
I only posted the information because IF this were not a black on black crime, the media would be SCREAMING about “bullying” and “gay bashing”.
“I would love to understand better what was happening here.”
Yes, I agree. I read a long article about this, posted here, that went into all sorts of details about the conflicts over the band, the band manager, the school, etc.
But it didn’t address why this fellow, who as you point out wasn’t some newbie but a long time member of this very accomplished band was BEATEN TO DEATH on the BAND’S BUS.
I don’t even understand HOW this could have happened, much less WHY.
I think charging this mob with “hazing” is very inadequate. I understand the law addresses causing the death of the hazee, but this is not a case where something stupid (like forcing someone to consume mass quantities of booze, for example) leads, inadvertently, to death.
They beat the cr*p out of this guy, beat him to death.
They should be looking at manslaughter, at least. And any school officials who were on that bus should also be criminally charged.
If the man being gay, or being thought to be gay, was the motive for this attack, introduce it as evidence.
But I don’t think we are ever going to know what really happened here.
Wow, two protected classes in opposition....quite the dilemma. I wonder which one trumps the other?
This is the first article that mentions that FAMU is a black college. By what the SRM has reported, it was just like any other integrated college.
If a death is caused during a crime, aren’t all participants charged with murder?
Florida has the concept of felony murder, where if a person dies during the commission of a felony, then everybody involved is guilty. But punching a person is not necessarily a felony.
Under that line of reasoning, a group of people can, in theory, murder a person by each of them delivering one hit, but where no individual hit can be labeled the fatal blow. That's just nuts. the law needs to be that if a group assaults an individual, then the entire group is responsible for the act to the same degree as if an individual did the entire assault.
****Getting killed for being a homosexual is no different than getting killed for money****
How do we know he was killed for being a homo? Maybe he was a jerk. Or not willing to fight back. Or an “initiation” thrashing. Or his looks. Or a hundred other reasons.
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