Multiple people are facing criminal charges in the recent death of a 20-year-old student at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that evidently occurred amid a fraternity hazing, authorities have said.
Caleb McCray, 23, surrendered to police in Louisiana’s capital city on Thursday on counts of manslaughter as well as criminal hazing in the 27 February death of 20-year-old Caleb Wilson, a mechanical engineering student at Southern as well as a member of its famed Human Jukebox marching band.
At a news conference on Friday, the Baton Rouge police chief, TJ Morse, said investigators had obtained warrants to arrest two more suspects in Wilson’s killing and were making arrangements with their attorneys for them to turn themselves over for booking. Morse did not immediately identify that pair and said he could not immediately rule out obtaining more arrest warrants in the case.
Morse explained that investigators were treating Wilson’s death as a manslaughter rather than a murder because it was unintentional yet resulted from criminal behavior – specifically, hazing. Morse said his agency has determined Wilson died after repeatedly being punched in the chest while undergoing the pledging process to join Southern’s Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
Louisiana’s legislature criminalized hazing after the 2017 death of Max Gruver, who had been forced to ingest a fatal level of alcohol while pledging to join the Phi Delta Theta fraternity at Louisiana State University, also in Baton Rouge.
Omega Psi Phi at Southern has been “ordered to cease all activities”, according to the president of the historically Black school, Dennis Shields. The fraternity could face civil penalties under Louisiana’s anti-hazing laws, the Baton Rouge district attorney, Hillar Moore said.
Shields said the school was subjecting an unspecified number of students to disciplinary proceedings, too.
“We got to do better, Baton Rouge,” the city’s mayor, Sid Edwards, said at Friday’s news conference. Referring to Wilson, he added, “It’s … sad … to lose such a promising young life. And I encourage all the young people out there to make better decisions.”
According to Morse, Baton Rouge police learned of Wilson’s death from medical staff at a local hospital where a group of young men had dropped him off. The group claimed Wilson had collapsed while playing basketball at a public park and then left before police arrived to investigate.
Officers nonetheless subsequently determined that Wilson – in his junior year at Southern – was mortally injured during a hazing ritual at a warehouse more than three miles away from the park, Morse said.
An arrest warrant affidavit reviewed by the Associated Press said McCray, who is described by Baton Rouge television station WBRZ as a Southern graduate and Omega Psi Phi member, and at least two other people wearing boxing gloves punched Wilson as well as eight other fraternity pledges. After McCray punched Wilson four times in the chest, Wilson “collapsed to the floor and became unresponsive”, the affidavit alleges.
“Wilson appeared to suffer a seizure and lose control of his bodily function,” the affidavit added. Wilson had a bruise on the right side of his chest.
Morse said McCray turned himself over to authorities as police investigating Wilson’s death had interviewed more than a dozen people as well as executed multiple search warrants.
An attorney for McCray, Phillip Robinson, issued a statement to WBRZ arguing that police had not presented him with evidence that he believed was strong enough to support the allegations of criminal hazing and manslaughter against his client.
“We are committed to ensuring that all facts are properly examined and that due process is followed,” Robinson’s statement also said.
Manslaughter, under Louisiana law, can carry up to 40 years in prison. Criminal hazing can carry a maximum of five years’ imprisonment.
Before attending Southern, Wilson graduated from Warren Easton high school in New Orleans and played trumpet for its marching band.
The Human Jukebox performed at the NFL Super Bowl played on 9 February in New Orleans.
Among those to mourn Wilson’s death was the owner of New Orleans’s two professional sports teams, Gayle Benson, for whom Wilson’s father, Corey, worked security details as part of his job as a deputy with the sheriff’s office of Jefferson parish, Louisiana.
“We mourn with [Wilson’s father] … on this senseless passing,” Benson said in a statement reported on by multiple media outlets.
Wilson was honored on Thursday at a second line – traditionally, a musical and dancing celebration trailing closely behind a parade – held in his memory in New Orleans’s Treme neighborhood. A friend of Wilson who attended the second line told the Guardian reporting partner WWL Louisiana that Wilson “had a good spirit”.
“He was gifted, gifted with the trumpet,” said the friend, Brandon Mitchell. “And he had a good heart.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
