ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 15, 1997 TAG: 9703170045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: S.D. HARRINGTON THE ROANOKE TIMES
Incident involved four blindfolded men who were on their stomachs in shallow creek water.
An attorney for one of the Roanoke College students and former students charged with hazing last month said Roanoke County police overreacted when they stumbled onto an initiation ritual of the unofficial fraternity Campus Inter-Action, charging 10 of them with hazing.
Commonwealth's Attorney Skip Burkart dropped the charges against the men Thursday after determining that the ritual wasn't hazing because no one was physically injured.
The state code does not define hazing, but says "it shall be unlawful to haze, or otherwise mistreat so as to cause bodily injury...."
Police charged the four inductees with being drunk in public, but they were not injured, Burkart said.
"They just blew it out of proportion," said Salem attorney Charlie Phillips, who represented one of the men charged with hazing and trespassing.
Police responded to a disturbance call Feb. 25 near Carvins Cove when they found 14 men standing around four blindfolded men who were on their stomachs in shallow creek water.
The police said some of them were holding down the blindfolded men while others stood on a bank, shining flashlights and yelling.
They charged 10 of the men - six Roanoke College students and four former students - with hazing. They charged 13 of them with trespassing.
Roanoke County police Lt. Gary Roche would not speak for the officers as to why they brought the hazing charges.
Burkart said he understands how a magistrate may have misinterpreted the law because the hazing code is rarely used in Roanoke County.
They were the first hazing charges in the county of which Burkart was aware.
"It was nothing more than a typical frat induction," Phillips said. "What I'm surprised about is the magistrate let the police officers call the shots."
Phillips said the inductees were blindfolded and led by senior members on their hands and knees through the woods and "marshy water."
"All these guys were staying completely sober to make sure [the inductees] were OK," he said.
Campus Inter-Action, commonly referred to as CIA, is an unofficial social group that was started in the early 1980s by members of a fraternity that was kicked off campus.
The fraternity, Kappa Alpha Order, has since been reinstated. But CIA continued to draw members.
Some Roanoke alumni and former CIA members called the newspaper to defend the hazing charges after the story made national news.
"CIA is an association of close friends," said Bradford Sywolski, a 1994 graduate from Connecticut.
The ritual is meant to build trust among the members, he said. "You see these people here tonight - you can trust with your life. When those students are blindfolded, they're trusting the others."
Sywolski said the ritual was not life threatening, only challenging.
"This isn't hazing by VMI standards, or by Citadel standards. This is welcome to The Citadel - maybe," he said.
On Thursday, Roanoke County General District Judge George Harris took the trespassing charges under advisement and ordered those charged to perform 40 hours of community service.
The 14 students are not off the hook.
They will face the college's conduct board next week. But because CIA is not a recognized college organization, the school's anti-hazing policy cannot be enforced.
Instead, each student's actions will be judged by the student conduct code, which doesn't mention hazing.
That code regulates behavior on or off campus, including "verbal, written, physical or other type of assault, abuse, harassment or intimidation which demeans, degrades, injures or frightens."
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