The Florida medical examiner’s office has ruled that the death of a Florida A&M University drum major last month was a homicide, the AJC.com reports.
The coroner concluding that the student was severely beaten in a hazing incident which took place within an hour before he died. 26-year-old Robert Champion was found unresponsive on board a chartered bus parked outside an Orlando hotel after the school’s football team lost to rival Bethune-Cookman on Nov. 19.
Investigators believe Champion was punched and pummeled repeatedly on board the bus by other band members in a hazing incident gone horribly wrong.
Witnesses told emergency dispatchers that Champion vomited and struggled to breathe before he collapsed. Champion had bruises to his chest, arms, shoulder and back and internal bleeding that caused him to go into shock, which killed him.
Immediately after the hazing, Champion complained of thirst (due to loss of blood internally) and fatigue, then loss of vision and signs of shock, the report said.
Champion’s death is the latest in a history of injurious hazing incidents at the historically black college. In 2001, FAMU band member Marcus Parker suffered kidney damage after being beaten with a paddle “around 300 times,” the AJC reports.
And three weeks before Champion’s death on Nov. 19, a female band member’s thigh bone was broken when she was severely beaten. Three male band members were arrested in that incident.
FAMU’s longtime band director Julian White was terminated following Champion’s death, but he was later reinstated and placed on suspension with pay pending the results of local and federal investigations.
There are also growing calls for the removal of FAMU President James Ammons. The AJC reports that Gov. Rick Scott met privately with Ammons to discuss whether the university leader should step down.
“We all have the best interests of Florida A&M University at heart, we are going to do what’s best for university,” Ammons said.
A death caused by hazing is a third-degree felony in Florida. So far no charges have been filed.
Champion’s parents have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against FAMU’s board of directors, which the family says has covered up a “culture of hazing” at the school.
“We don’t want to stop the music, we want to stop the hazing,” the family said in a statement released Friday evening.
