The 18 fraternity members were wrong, and would still be wrong if Piazza had survived. Decent men would have called for help and not put him at risk. And there are decent men in most fraternities, and these 18 men have no excuse for their callous behavior. They were wrong and should have known it. But they are not the only ones who made bad decisions that weekend. Other men in other houses made similarly bad decisions that we don’t know about because no one died.
My view is that some and probably most young people would not have hazed, and would have gotten Piazza help if they saw his condition. But there is a significant minority that would haze and cover up. And even their friends and parents might have a hard time telling who is going to fall on which side of that line. But because the history of humankind says that there will be plenty of both kinds of people in any large group, we need to have some controls in place. At a fraternity that might be more adult presence. At a college it might be an honor court. In my neighborhood it’s probably the police and the plaintiff’s bar - people called in after the fact.
@doschicos…it amazes me that folks cannot see the difference… absolutely amazes me. Twice down the steps head first… flailing arms and legs, obvious chest and upper body injuries, blood from the mouth, shall I continue…I mean this isnt just a pledge gunshotting a beer…this is not boys will be boys…this was verbal, mental and physical abuse.
Is anyone saying “boys will be boys”? I don’t see it in this thread. I do see “there are more criminals than we know about. These aren’t monsters, just callous criminals.”
“@northwesty I think one of things that will hurt these boys at trial is the googling they did throughout those 12 hours. Those online searches suggest at least some of the fraternity members had more than an inkling that Timothy Piazza may have been in trouble.”
Sure. Like I said above, you are relying upon the decision-making skills of a mob of young, drunk, SCARED, guys late at night. That’s not a good recipe.
I’m sure you would find the exact same the google-ing behavior in the many many cases where they put the guy to bed with a drunk pack and he woke up fine.
Like I said above, these guys are likely to be legally convicted of something. But I think it is pretty likely that similar risky type of behavior happens often. It just doesn’t result in a death very often.
And what about the fact that the next morning, when the brothers were ‘sobered’ up and should have been able to think more clearly - they still acted recklessly. Instead of calling 911 right away, they waited 40 minutes, so they could try to clean Piazza up and change his clothes. You can’t use the I’m too drunk defense for that.
But @Northwesty Timothy Piazza did not “wake up fine” and still there was no help. At 6 am he was still writhing around on the floor when fraternity members came downstairs and stepped over him to get to the kitchen. By 7 am another fraternity member was sitting on the couch filming him with his cell phone. This went on for another 3+ hours before someone called 911. That call went in after 10 am.
@doschicos You’re naive to believe that stumbling and falling doesn’t always happen in these situation of complete inebriation. I think that is exactly the problem. I think they have seen this, so many times before, that its commonplace, as sad as that may seem.(Note Jpc763, even experienced that. Granted they got their frat brother help, but none of this makes any sense. I still go back to…"WHY THE HELL WOULD ANYONE DO THIS? Why would Piazza allow himself to be put in this position at all? Why didn’t they listen to the kid who urge them all to get Piazza help? WHY? WHY? WHY? So many bad choices were made, over and over again, to culminate into this horrific diaster.
Im not missing any fact and I have read the Presentment. I think you’re just giving this Frat bros too much common sense credit. Maybe your children would be more responsible and/or independent thinkers. Kudos to them. So are mine. But obviously, thats not the case for all and these Frat bros didn’t show themselves to be any different.
@HarvestMoon1 - I agree and thats why those 18 young men are getting exactly what they deserve. However, this could have happened anywhere. Probably has happened before, and will continue unless punishments are harsher, theres better policing of these Frats, and individuals ( haze-or’s and haze-ee’s begin to make better choices for themselves as well as others)
My father was young when he started completing his mandatory service obligation as a conscripted second lieutenant in command of a platoon of ~40-50 conscripts around the same age/older than him and NCOs who were nearly/practically old enough to be his father. Heck, he was actually younger than many of the conscript soldiers he outranked.
If any of the soldiers in his platoon…including his NCOs did less than half the things the president, leaders, and older members of Penn State’s chapter of Beta Theta Pi pulled which resulted in the death of Piazza, my father along with his company and battalion commanders would find themselves facing harsh grilling from a court martial investigation, likely time in a military prison, and being cashiered from service in disgrace upon finishing one’s court-martial sentence with the associated stigma* which won’t help with post-service employment prospects.
Would be like a Bad Conduct Discharge for officers.
I would think that by virtue of their voluntarily signing themselves up for leadership positions in the fraternity or being older brothers, they’ve effectively signed up for the possibility of being held to higher maturity, common sense, and responsibility than younger fraternity members or moreso…new pledges like Piazza.
It’s no different from what my father signed himself up for when he opted to complete his mandatory service obligation as a conscript junior officer with its greater pay, but also far greater responsibilities. One of the latter includes being held responsible for the conduct, discipline, and military training proficiency of everyone in his platoon.
Doesn’t matter that he started his service at 20 and many conscripts were around the same age/older or that all the NCOs were almost/practically the same age as his father. He’s still responsible for ensuring their good conduct, discipline, and military training proficiency by virtue of his greater rank and position as the platoon commander.
Likewise, his Company and Battalion commanders would also be held accountable and to higher standards for screwups by their subordinate officers like my father or NCOs/soldiers under their commands by virtue of their higher rank, positions, along with the fact they’re invariably career officers with longer and more in depth experience in the service.
What about the brother that wanted to call for help and they pinned him to the wall because he knew he was in trouble? He knew the pledge was in grave danger and from the finding…they all did and tried to prevent help from coming in hopes of self preservation.
I really do think part of the problem is the drinking age. If the drinking age was 18, the parties could file for permits from the university or the city, and that would probably require them to have an EMT on site. I used to go to a lot of raves, and they would always have at least one EMT to help in a situation like this! Nobody gets in trouble, but an ambulance gets called if needed. Even the underground, un-permitted, illegal raves my friends and I used to throw when we were young would have an EMT. It was a part of our budgeting procedure. No matter how worried we were about our party getting shut down, we ALWAYS called an ambulance if it was ever needed ( It was rarely needed for the record, but once 2 homeless people got in a fight and we called it for one of them). If a fraternity can afford to spend $1200 on booze, they can afford an extra couple hundred dollars to have a trained professional to handle their idiocy.
@Cobrat- Honestly your passages about your dad are certainly noteworthy but not truly comparable. First, those were different times and in your case you mention that he was from a different country. I don’t think you can keep making these analogies.
My parents were born and raised in the USA, it was common for them to be married by the time they were 20. Most of didn’t attend college. Youre comparing apples to oranges.
"You’re naive to believe that stumbling and falling doesn’t always happen in these situation of complete inebriation. "
Again, you aren’t getting the severity of this. He fell down the stairs, HEAD FIRST, TWICE. This is not stumbling and falling down. This is falling a whole building level on one’s head - twice, which if maybe they had taken care of him the first time would not have happened again. He exhibited symptoms that need to be covered up. They saw the bruising. They punched him in the gut. They slapped him. He was cold. They exchanged messages about their concern that he was not right and about covering it up. Please don’t compare that to a drunk college kid falling on his ass or stumbling over a doorway or curb. I don’t see how you can equate the two. Yes, I’m sure it has now and then happened before as another poster has spoken about from personal experience but I find it hard to believe that cases with this kind of severity - that then get ignored - happen that often. It’s is the severity COMBINED with the lack of care and the covering up that makes this heinous, does it not? Otherwise we’d have dead students every weekend.
@philbegas I think you are correct about EMTs and such as monitors. Both my kids’ campuses have such systems in place - trained student monitors - despite the drinking age because they know that colleges students will drink despite the laws. Better to be pragmatic and provide a practical monitoring system.
@doschicos Just because you find it hard to believe doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. As far as it being heinous, I couldn’t agree with you more. But its my belief that this happens more than you think. Please respect that. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand the severity. On the contrary, I believe it worse than you think.
Different times, yes, but the fact he was from a different country is irrelevant. One can easily find similar stories of young adults in the US from the recent operations in OIF/Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, WWII, WWI, etc.
My larger point was that not too long ago, there were much higher expectations of maturity, responsibility, and personal conduct and a critical mass of young people between 16-22 met/exceeded it. My father was only one of a multitude…not a unique exceptional case.
If anything, I’m of the view what transpired here with Beta Theta Pi and other Penn State fraternities and those around the country with similar hazing/criminal behaviors are really more indicative of a large minority who are part of a problematic toxic subculture which condones/encourages hazing and excessive drinking/bad behavior within our society.
Not an indictment of the entire college aged population or even all greek organizations.
A problematic subculture which has existed for decades and abetted by college administrations willing to overlook their problematic issues with a wink and a nod and well-off parents/alums who are themselves part of the subculture or those aspired to join in or in denial/ignorant of this problematic subculture in their own backyard/on some campuses/greek chapters.
If it happens more, why don’t we hear about those cases? Before you say that in those other cases the victim gets up with little more than bumps, bruises, and a bad hangover, remember that was not the case here and THEY KNEW IT.
“The Beta Theta Pi house had eight or nine cameras, one for nearly every room in the house, in full color and full broadcast quality, Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller said, capturing much of what happened to Piazza in the roughly 12 hours after his fall. Parks Miller said Piazza’s skin had turned gray by morning, which was especially noticeable in the final 40 minutes before the 911 call – the time period prosecutors call the “cover-up” – during which the students allegedly wanted to make Piazza appear healthier than he was by trying to dress him in clean clothes.”
This is how his ‘brothers’ treated him the next morning when they were more or less sober.
I get that they were in panic mode, but at least trying to do the right thing may show some level of compassion.
@cobrat You mentioned
“My larger point was that not too long ago, there were much higher expectations of maturity, responsibility, and personal conduct and a critical mass of young people between 16-22 met/exceeded it. My father was only one of a multitude…not a unique exceptional case.”
I agree with that thought but again its a sign of the times. Young people these days are not as mature as they were during your parents times. As I mentioned before, our parents generation were getting married at 20. They had full time jobs and familial responsibilities. Those are things that most 20 year olds in the USA can’t even begin to imagine for themselves.
Using young adults in the US who are in the military as an example of maturity isn’t valid either because they aren’t the majority. No one is disputing that there are mature young adults are there. The problem is that there aren’t many.
As I mentioned before I have a son and daughter who have gone to college. They seem to think this is not uncommon at all. So since they were there to hear these stories, I am going to assume they know more of what is going on out there then I do.