Harrisburg is not a “real city” - I’m guessing you’ve never been :).
Michigan State and Alabama are both in college towns a few hours away from a major city (// Penn State).
As for statues to coaches, as shocking as it may seem, it’s common and entirely unrelated to any shade of dictatorship traditions. In my humble opinion, it’s more likely to reflect the outsize status athletes and sports teams have in American society. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle_of_Coaches#The_Cradle_of_Coaches_sculpture_group
http://www.totalprosports.com/2013/09/03/20-college-football-legends-with-their-own-statues/
https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/sec-football/sec-football-statues/
http://bobbybowden.com/samford-university-unveils-bowden-statue/
@MYOS1634 I should have put real city in quotes. 
“a deindustrialized town that’s hanging by a thread thanks to being the state capital” is the best characterization I can think of. I used to use their bus/station as a transfer hub for professional reasons for 2 years and I commiserate with your nephew. 
It’s a horrible, infinitely sad story. We have done a terrible job in this country around the issues of alcohol consumption and adults between the ages of 18 and 21.
For those asking about surveilance cameras: they are pretty common in frat houses nowadays, at least here at UMich.
How ironic that the “adult” living in the frat house who has completely unaware of all the happenings – is an assistant athletic director and trainer for the football team. Not that football has anything to do it with it - but you see the judgment here. And sorry I’m not buying that someone living in the same house has NO idea what’s going on downstairs at all; he chose not to know. I have to imagine the guys were walking around the house and there were whispers of – damn we’re gonna get in trouble (I’m mean if they are texting about it, they’re talking about it); at no point in the night did Tim Bream leave his room to go to the bathroom or the kitchen and hear these whispers/suspect something hush hush was happening? Come on.
As for which fall was the one for him – who knows. 2 falls down the basement stairs, lots of falls off the couch to where his frat bros decided the way to stop him from rolling over was to sit on his legs; then when he got up around 3-4 am, he apparently bashed his head a few times more - on a stairwell railing, on a stone floor etc. Apparently he had a severe skull fracture with so much brain swelling that his brain was displaced by 50%. That plus 80% of his blood pooling in his torso due to the spleen had to be detrimental. His poor parents have to relive all these details – plus the presentment included doctors’ testimony to the grand jury – and they said that those injuries would have been extraordinary painful for him in his semi conscious state. Can you imagine his parents knowing that he suffered that kind of pain for 15 straight hours? When his moron “brothers” could have taken him to the hospital at 10 pm and they could have put him under right away to operate on his spleen and relive the pressure on his brain - and thus also saving him like 5 other falls??
^For me, a real eye-opening part of the Atlantic’s article about Dark Power of Fraternities was the part about lawyers. Each fraternity is insured and has lawyers. Their role, however, is NOT to defend current fraternity brothers. Their role is to protect the fraternity’s name/national organization, generally by throwing the current students under the bus or making sure the chapter closes/is punished, in order to ensure they’re seen as the “bad apple” rather than the Fraternity itself. I’m guessing there had been insurance and national organization concerns, hence the cameras.
I think the type of attitude some fraternities emboldens is reflected in what happened after Penn State passed strict(er) rules about them. I remember each fraternity could host 10 alcohol-fuled events a semester (that’s about one a week, sounds like a lot… until you realize it used to be 45! 3 a week! PER fraternity!!) and they had to have some certified staff to serve alcohol, with no kegs and no hard liquor: some fraternities complied (and/or some didn’t and were discrete about it- just guessing), and one flaunted their disregard for the rules. @bodangles can probably discuss this further. But how boldly some fraternities acted shows they emboldened that “rules don’t apply to me” attitude that so many jerks have.
For all that, I don’t think this crime reflects on ALL Penn State students.
I’m willing to bet most of them never get involved with Greek life and “create their own fun” in other ways than getting blasted three times a week.
I read the Charges and Presentment this morning. It has very graphic details of the evening’s events from the surveillance film. It was very disturbing and difficult to read.
Does anyone know the possible penalties the beasts that did this may face?
Yes, alcohol was a contributing factor. And the likelihood of accidents occurring and poor decision making in the face of excess alcohol consumption can’t be ignored. But this incident is far more sinister. These boys only cared about themselves and not getting into trouble. A fraternity is supposed to be about brotherhood - watching out for one another, helping one another. Not one “brother” did anything to help this young man who clearly needed help. Their disregard for his welfare is incomprehensible - almost sociopathic. It is frightening to think of so many kids without a conscience. It doesn’t just reflect badly on Penn State, or Beta Theta PI, or fraternities - these kids likely came from all over - yet none had the courage to do the right thing. How hard would it have been to step outside and dial 911?
no, no, no…not gonna do the generic “blame the country” thing - put it on those kids and the parents where it belongs. I don’t know one person that would have behaved this way, most people don’t, because the people we know were taught not too behave this way (no matter how much they drink). The reason it is so shocking is because this isn’t normal behavior, thank goodness.
The adult is pretending, but should be found responsible for something.
@MaterS – unfortunately the sentences here are not that significant given what happened. Of the 18 - only 8 have been charged with the highest level crime of involuntary manslaughter. In PA the max sentence for involuntary manslaughter is 5 yrs. And I’m not a Pa. trial lawyer (though am a lawyer) - it isn’t required for people to actually get the max sentence. There are always defenses presented; interestingly in Pa. being voluntarily intoxicated is NOT a defense on this charge, so it’ll be hard for them claim - oh I was drunk. But they’ll come up with something - bc they are young guys it’ll be about their lack of training; about how they didn’t recognize how badly Tim was doing and thought it was a “he needs to sleep it off” issue etc.
So the frat prez and the ones running the pledge events (who’ve been charged with involuntary manslaughter) are age 20-21-ish. So even max sentences, which I’m sure will run concurrently for all the “lesser” crimes they been charged with – they’re out at age 25-26 at the latest. They’ll do perfectly fine in life. Sorry for how this sounds but they are young white men from Penn State – a school with a known party culture and a HUGE alumni population. Sure many alums are probably horrified by this, but you know there are also many alums who since the Sandusky issue have played the – oh everyone hates Penn State and is out to get us so we need to stick tight to each other – card well. You know there are enough of those alums who will just blame the DA for even pursuing charges to make an example and how unfair it all is bc these are good solid PSU guys – that these 18 guys will be hooked up with jobs somewhere through those alums (and maybe even through some of their own families who will likely delusionally believe that one kid not handling his liquor ruined it for my son and his friends who were not doctors so how were they supposed to know what to do; I have a small business - I will hire my son and a few of these guys to make sure they start making a life for themselves post prison).
@aj725 Sadly, I think you nailed the probable outcomes right on the head. Do you think the victim’s family have any chance of winning major liability judgments?
@tdy123 - I think yes. Thus far it’s just the criminal cases filed by the DA. The family has time to file civil cases - and I hope they do. Not because it helps their grief bc it won’t but bc I think it needs to be done. They could name the 8 guys involved in the involuntary manslaughter - but the problem is they’re 20 yrs old - what assets do they really have? And at 20 - they are not minors so you’re not going after their family’s assets.
The real defendant here is Penn State. That school (and probably all schools but esp that one given all the recent scandals) gets sued a lot and has settled cases for millions - including for the child abuse cases. For child abuse, it was able to say - those kids weren’t students, the university didn’t have responsibility; they didn’t know etc. – but reality is Penn State still had to pay bc it was on its campus and they should have known. Same arguments and defenses will be used here - this frat had been given rules re being dry; it’s the fault of the bad apples that they didn’t follow; the victim shouldn’t have been drinking; it was a private social not university event. But reality is - Penn State will have to settle (I wouldn’t think they’d go to trial - PR nightmare) bc it is a frat house on campus and whether it’s technically independent of university operations or not, you have a university staffer living there and you know your students are going there to engage in social activities - so it is the university’s problem.
By reports I have read, the Beta Theta Pi house is off campus per President’s statement as well as others: “All indicators suggested Beta Theta Phi was a model fraternity – the house, privately-owned and situated like all other fraternity houses on private property”
No doubt the president sees a reason to make this clear in the University’s statement.
Of course the president of Penn State makes that clear. With a few exceptions the vast majority of colleges tend to look the other way about underage drinking especially if it’s not occurring on their property. I am, however, surprised that the “staffer” was a college employee if what aj725 says and wonder where that staffer was that night. I won’t blame the parents of the frat members and never will but it makes me pause if there was a college staff member in that house that night and is not part of the indictment.
While I agree with this statement, I don’t think it applies to this situation. The initial fall was due to being forced to drink a lot, most likely, but the truly horrifying stuff, to me anyway, is the reaction of the other members in the hours after that fall.
Everything they did was to protect themselves from getting into trouble for their hazing/drinking. That has nothing to do with alcohol.
This makes no sense considering the efforts of covering up and even physically assaulting a brother who wanted to call 911 early on shows:
Sorry, but that type of behavior rarely arises out of the blue after someone turned 18 and goes off to college.
Odds are the parents are responsible for encouraging/modeling this behavior themselves or they failed to punish this behavior/were in denial before college.
Because I typically don’t blame others and that attitude makes sense for me in my life…maybe not to others who are trying to find a reason or make sense of what these young adults did. I would never consider that the parents encouraged or modeled this “behavior”…not in a million years. People’s empathy levels, how they behave in a crisis or under stress, how they react to alcohol. whether they are followers or leaders…alot of it is hardwired to genetics so I assume in a major stretch you could “blame parents” but I can’t.
^^ I agree, @momofthreeboys. I know many good parents who have modeled good behavior and done what I consider to be a fine parenting job, but end up with a bad apple - usually just one and the other kids are good citizens like the parents. I can’t assume the parents didn’t raise these boys properly without even knowing them.