Over the past few years American universities, and especially their fraternity houses, have been put under the spotlight for their tradition of hazing new recruits.

You probably know what hazing is, thanks to all those crummy comedies we are subjected to, but it’s what we might call initiation.

Things have really taken a turn for the worse over at Penn State, where 18 members of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity face charges following the death of 19-year-old Timothy Piazza [in football uniform above].

Eight of those 18 face charges of involuntary manslaughter.

Piazza was a first-year engineering student, with this below from VICE:

…Piazza was pledging to be a member of Beta Theta Pi and attended a bid acceptance party on February 2nd, an event swimming in alcohol—the frat members had bought nearly $1,200 worth of booze to mark the day.

…one of the rituals that took place at the party was something the frat boys called “the gauntlet.” This involved the pledges hitting up station after station where they would shoot vodka, shotgun a beer or other activities. Soon after taking part in events like this, Piazza’s blood alcohol content skyrocketed to almost 0.40.

In this state Piazza stumbled towards the stairs leading to the frat house’s [pictured above] basement, fell head first and suffered head injuries. According the the prosecutor, frat members picked up the 19-year-old and brought him to a couch and tried to watch over him. From here Piazza got worse and at no point did the frat members attempt to get him professional help. The young man was suffering from serious head wounds, had trouble standing, and fell down the stairs again. In the morning the frat members once again found him in a bad state and one googled “what to do for a head injury.”

Call an ambulance, you absolute bellend.

No, instead they tried to revive him for 40 minutes, during which time no one called the paramedics.

When someone eventually did, the news was very bad:

When Piazza was finally brought to the hospital it was found that his spleen was “shattered,” he suffered extensive internal bleeding, and extensive head injuries. He underwent several surgeries, including a temporal lobotomy to reduce brain swelling but Piazza died in the early hours of February 4th.

According to the investigation, some of the members attempted to delete messages in regards to Piazza and ordered other pledges to clean up some of the evidence of hazing.

You have to spare a thought for Piazza’s father, Jim, who is understandably raging:

“This is the result of a feeling of entitlement, flagrant disobedience of the law and disregard for moral values that was then exacerbated by egregious acts of self-preservation. Again, this did not have to happen.”

The 10 members who aren’t being charged with involuntary manslaughter face other charges – aggravated assault, providing alcohol to minors, and hazing amongst them.

And you thought that time you woke up at uni with a dick drawn on your face was bad.

[source:vice]