“We Don’t Want to Stop the Music – We Just Want to Stop the Hazing.”
By Cliff Dunn
ORLANDO, FL – The parents of a Florida A&M University student killed last year after a hazing incident aboard a chartered bus say that they will sue the school and the bus company for the death of their son, adding that Robert Champion, 26, was subjected to harassment because he was gay.
Chris Chestnut, the attorney for the family of Champion, a drum major with the school’s famous Marching 100 band, told reporters on Jan. 10: “We do anticipate, in the very near future, filing a legal action against the bus company alleging negligence and wrongful death.”
Pam Champion says her son “wasn’t defined by his sexual orientation. He was just defined as being a child going to school, trying to get an education.”
Champion collapsed on the bus in Orlando following a November football game that included a halftime performance by the Marching 100, which is considered one of the best marching bands in the nation. The band performed at the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Chestnut said that the lawsuit will permit him to subpoena witnesses in an effort to determine who was driving the bus, whether the driver was on the bus at the time of Champion’s fatal beating, and the reasons behind the attack, which is believed to have taken place in front of an estimated 30 witnesses. As of yet, no criminal charges have been filed.
Fabulous Coach Lines of Branford, Florida is the charter company for the bus, which, along with its air conditioning system, was believed to have been left running during Champion’s beating. It has been alleged that the bus driver was not on the bus at the time of the attack.
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, more commonly known as Florida A&M or FAMU, is the nation’s largest historically black university by enrollment. The school is protected under sovereign immunity, which means that under most circumstances, it is immune from civil suit. Champion’s parents, Robert and Pam Champion, are required by law to file a notice of intent to sue, and must then wait six months to file suit against the university.
“I’m waiting on a solution,” Pam Champion told CBS News last week. “Our goal is not to shut down any school. Our goal is not to stop the music. Our goal is to stop the hazing.”
Some Marching 100 members have said that Champion died after he took part in a hazing ritual called “crossing Bus C.”
CNN reported last week that one band member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters that the ritual required students to “walk from the front of the bus to the back of the bus backward while the bus is full of other band members, and you get beaten until you get to the back.”
The Orange County Medical Examiner’s ruled Champion’s death a homicide, and said that the student “collapsed and died within an hour of a hazing incident during which he suffered multiple blunt trauma blows to his body.” An autopsy found “extensive contusions of his chest, arms, shoulder and back,” along with “evidence of crushing of areas of subcutaneous fat,” the fatty tissue directly below skin.
Champion’s mother says her son “wasn’t defined by his sexual orientation. He was just defined as being a child going to school, trying to get an education.”
Attorney Chestnut says that the fact that Champion was gay may not have been a primary factor in the hazing death. “This is not a hate crime. This is a hazing crime,” he told reporters. “Florida A&M University has a 50-year history, a culture in this band, of hazing.”
Pam Champion told reporters last week that her son “loved his music. He loved the band. He was very serious about how he did and the position he was in.”
“Robert Champion was defined by the fact that he followed the rules,” and was a vocal critic of hazing practices at FAMU, Chestnut said.
PHOTO: JOSEPH?BROWN - TBO.com
