ORLANDO — On Wednesday, prosecutors in Central Florida handed down criminal charges against 13 people for counts related to the death of Florida A&M University (FAMU) marching band member Robert Champion, who was beaten and died following a football game in November. Champion, who was gay, belonged to FAMU’s famed Marching 100, which has performed during Super Bowl halftime shows and at President Obama’s inauguration.
Citing the growing concern over hazing and other forms of institutionalized intimidation, Lawson Lamar, the State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Court (Orange County) warned reporters that “Hazing is something that will continue to happen out of sight until a student like Robert Champion pays the ultimate price.”
Lamar said that about two dozen other people also face misdemeanor charges in hazing cases at historically black FAMU that did not result in loss of life. Eleven of the individuals charged in Champion’s death face felony counts, while two are charged with misdemeanors.
According to court documents, Champion, 26, died Nov. 19 after being beaten, kicked, and suffocated aboard a school bus by fellow student band members during a hazing ritual.
Those familiar with the case say that a tradition known as “Crossing Bus C” required students to walk down the bus’s center aisle while band members punched them. Champion, whose body was found on the bus, was pronounced dead at the hospital.
FAMU officials suspended the Marching 100 after Champion’s death and have said that the band might not perform during the 2012 football season. Julian White, the band director, was initially terminated from his job, and then put on paid administrative leave.
In 2005, Florida passed a strict anti-hazing law after the drowning death of a college student during a fraternity event. The law makes it easier for prosecutors to treat hazing as a felony.
Legal experts say that prosecutors would have had a hard time proving that band members had committed murder or manslaughter, as the participation of so many students in the hazing would make it difficult to prove that a single student caused Champion’s death.
