Three Florida A&M Band Members Arrested in Another Hazing Incident
The drama at FAMU isn’t over yet.
On Monday, police arrested three Florida A&M University band members in the beating of a woman during hazing rituals that were severe enough to break her thigh. Sean Hobson, 23, and Aaron Golson, 19, were charged with hazing and battery, and James Harris, 22, was charged with hazing.
Police are reporting that on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, the three students struck band member Bria Shante Hunter’s legs with their fists and a metal ruler. The acts were a part of initiating Hunter into a band clique for students from Georgia known as the “Red Dawg Order.”
Hunter told police that days later the pain because too unbearable that she had no choice but to go to the hospital. There, to her surprise, her thigh bone was broken and she had blood clots in her legs.
Since the incident, when asked by a local station why band members take part in hazing she responded, "So we can be accepted. If you don't do anything, then, it's like you're lame."
The beatings came only about three weeks before the death of 26-year-old Robert Champion, a drum major for the historically Black college’s famed marching band, the Marching 100, who died only hours after performing at the annual Florida Classic football game. Four students and the band director, who are all alleged to have direct or indirect involvement in Champion’s death, have not received disciplinary action at the request of the Florida Department of Law, who asked that the investigation be finished first.
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(Photos: AP Photo/Leon County Sheriff's Office, HO)