Shooting pledges and eating dirt: Inside the fraternity suspended from Coastal Carolina

Members of a Coastal Carolina University fraternity allegedly shot pledges with airguns as a form of hazing, according to the investigation that led to the group’s suspension.

The university suspended Alpha Chi Rho for five years for violating its code of student conduct, a ruling upheld earlier this year after appeal.

A first-year student who was pledging the fraternity withdrew from the university for medical reasons shortly after the alleged shooting in October 2022 left him with a severe concussion and welts all over his body, the investigative report compiled on behalf of the university shows.

The investigation, conducted by the Cozen O’Connor law firm, was initiated in March 2023 after CCU received a letter outlining the allegations from an attorney representing that former student.

The investigators’ report, acquired by The Sun News through a Freedom of Information Act request, documents interviews with 23 witnesses, including the former student who was allegedly shot, active members of the fraternity and CCU staff members with information related to the allegations.

The university redacted all the names of the students as well as the investigators’ determinations of responsibility and conclusion, citing exemptions based on attorney-client privilege and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

The investigative report shows that the mother of the student who medically withdrew told CCU student services officials about the hazing in November 2022, months before Greek Life personnel were made aware.

CCU has since 2022 updated its case management protocol and changed its intervention team membership and incident assessment process, according to university spokesman Jerry Rashid. It recently launched RealResponse, an anonymous texting and email platform available to all CCU students, faculty, and staff to report any concerns.

Rashid did not say whether these changes would have led to this case being investigated sooner.

Students involved in the alleged hazing faced conduct meetings and “appropriate sanctions,” but the university’s Department of Public Safety was not involved, Rashid added.

How did shooting happen?

Six pledges, who the fraternity called postulants, were summoned the night of Oct. 10, 2022 to an off-campus house on Quail Run where several Alpha Chi Rho brothers lived to prepare for a coming exam about the fraternity’s history, the former CCU student told investigators.

The fraternity members took the pledges’ cell phones and had them line up in the backyard and answer questions about the organization, ordering them initially to perform pushups or hold a plank position if someone gave an incorrect answer, he said in the report.

After a couple hours, some of the brothers retrieved airguns, including a BB gun, and began shooting at pledges who answered incorrectly, according to the former student, who told investigators he was shot twice in the head, at least once in the stomach and six times against his back.

This former student, who had suffered a concussion shortly before this incident, suffered severe headaches, loss of hearing and was later diagnosed with another concussion, medical records included in the report show. He left the university a couple weeks after the incident, and never reported it to police.

An attorney representing the former student sent CCU a letter, included in the report, seeking $225,000 to release the university from liability in relation to the incident. The university has not paid any compensation to resolve this issue, according to Rashid.

The former student’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

None of the fraternity members interviewed during the investigation admitted to shooting airguns at pledges. Some denied knowledge of anyone ever shooting an airgun at the residence, while others suggested members were shooting into the woods, and a pellet may have ricocheted off a tree and hit the former student in the head.

The only witness who supported the former student’s recollection of the shooting was a different former pledge, reportedly at the off-campus house that night.

That student told investigators he didn’t get shot, but he did witness them shooting other pledges, and one in particular who kept answering questions incorrectly and laughing about it, which made the brothers angry.

“It seemed more like them taking their anger out versus trying to teach someone something,” he said to investigators.

That student was later dropped from the pledging process before joining the fraternity after some members mistakenly accused him of sexually assaulting a female student, he told investigators.

Other hazing allegations

That former pledge also relayed several other instances of alleged hazing he and his pledge class endured, including being made to eat butter rolled in dirt, drink bong water, and being placed in a dark room with just a candle and told to separate by color a two-pound bag of colored sprinkles brothers spilled onto the floor.

The fraternity members interviewed all denied those allegations, and one even told investigators he’d never heard of a bong.

A separate incident Alpha Chi Rho members couldn’t deny was when their pledges were found to be housing ducks on campus.

University police called CCU’s director of Greek Life, Amanda Eisele, on Sept. 27, 2022 after a duck was discovered in a dorm, and a student had claimed he was babysitting it for a friend at a different college, the report shows. Another student later told Eisele that pledges were being told they’d have to kill the ducks after initiation.

The university suspended Alpha Chi Rho Sept. 29, 2022 due to the alleged hazing and animal abuse, but they were quickly reinstated Oct. 7, 2022 after discussions between CCU administrators, fraternity members and national Alpha Chi Rho representatives, according to letters included within the investigative report.

Eisele told investigators she was surprised the alleged shooting happened just three days after the reinstatement.

“I personally would’ve thought they would’ve been walking on eggshells just, and typically that’s what we see from an organization,” she said in the report.

The number for RealResponse, CCU’s anonymous incident reporting system, is 843-305-6911, and the email address is report@coastal.realresponse.com. The number is designated for texting and does not accept phone calls. Users can also share photos and videos through this platform.