Dec. 8, 2000

The Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity's national chapter officially suspended the campus chapter yesterday after a fraternity pledge was injured in an alleged hazing incident.

A fraternity member allegedly shot the pledge, who is an LSA first-year student, in the penis at close range with a BB gun early Monday morning. The injured pledge was clad only in boxer shorts at the time of the incident.

The 19-year-old victim, whose name has not been released, was scheduled for surgery yesterday at University Hospital. The family has requested that the hospital not release further information on the victim's condition.

The incident prompted other Pi pledges to speak out on initiation rites they endured while pledging the fraternity this semester. Many of the pledges said the fraternity practices some of the most brutal initiation rites on campus.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the pledges discussed activities that took place in the house this semester. Among the activities, pledges said they were duct taped to chairs and each other, and placed into a bathroom for seven hours while members of the house threw eggs into an open window of the room.

Active Pi members declined yesterday to comment yesterday either via telephone or in person on any of the pledges' allegations.

Pledges said the activities were conducted by "pledge educators" while the pledges were stripped down to their underwear.

"From what we know, it's one of the worst hazing houses on campus," said one of the four pledges who described the activities yesterday. He added that, in all the pledge activities, "There was no physical abuse."

The pledges said the BB gun used Monday had been purchased by the fraternity's chapter President Brad Lundy. The president could not be reached for comment. Pledges said the gun was fired into the air during other pledge activities this semester. On Monday night, assuming the gun was fempty, one of the pledge educators aimed and fired at individual pledges' eyes, temples and back before a BB discharged from the gun, injuring the seventh pledge in the line.

"There is resentment towards the older brothers," a second pledge said, but added that "it was a select few that focused their time toward" hazing and that he has "a positive feeling towards most of the brothers in the house."

The group of Pi pledges said Monday's shooting was not the first time a fellow pledge needed medical attention this semester.

Two pledges were admitted to the hospital for alcohol poisoning, and another pledge was sent to the hospital hours before the BB gun incident after being struck with a snowball containing a rock during an activity in which pledges were stripped down to their boxers and pelted with snowballs by members of the house, the pledges said.

Of the active fraternity member that threw the snowball, "his only concern (of the incident) was whether it would affect his getting into the business school," the second pledge stated.

A third pledge in the anonymous group described an incident when two pledges were taken to the University Hospitals' emergency room after ingesting too much vodka.

"I was sick of it and refused to participate," he said.

The same pledge said that in another incident, all but two members of the pledge class were dropped off four and a half miles from the fraternity house, located at 1620 Cambridge St., and forced to find their way back to the house.