Haazing Essay

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Hazing Death of Florida A&M Band Student ORLANDO, Fla. -- Thirteen people were criminally charged on May 2, 2012 with hazing in the death of a Florida A&M University marching band member who was beaten after a football game last fall. Of those charged in the death of the band member, Robert Champion, 11 were charged with felonies and 2 with misdemeanors, said Lawson Lamar, the state attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida, in a news conference here. More than 20 people will also face misdemeanor charges in the hazing of other students at Florida A&M. The Champion case is one of the largest criminal cases ever built on a hazing death, legal experts say. Prosecutors would not say whether all of the suspects are fellow students. "Hazing is something that will continue to happen out of sight until a student like Robert Champion pays the ultimate price," Mr. Lamar said. Police officers across the state are working to arrest the suspects, who have not been identified. A charge of felony hazing carries up to six years in prison. The case, which turned a national spotlight on hazing within elite marching bands, grew out of a beating that Mr. Champion, 26, received in Orlando on Nov. 19 after a football game against a rival school, Bethune-Cookman University. Prosecutors said Mr. Champion was beaten, kicked and suffocated by fellow band members during a hazing ritual aboard a bus. Under a tradition known as "Crossing Bus C," students would walk down the aisle of the bus while classmates punched them. Mr. Champion was found lifeless on the bus and pronounced dead at a hospital. Florida's hazing law was passed in 2005 following the death of University of Miami student Chad Meredith four years earlier. Meredith was drunk and died trying to swim across a lake at the behest of fraternity brothers. No criminal charges were filed in his case, but a

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