{"id":121199,"date":"2017-10-04T02:26:39","date_gmt":"2017-10-04T06:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=121199"},"modified":"2017-10-04T02:26:39","modified_gmt":"2017-10-04T06:26:39","slug":"drinking-game-may-have-preceded-fraternity-pledges-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/10\/04\/drinking-game-may-have-preceded-fraternity-pledges-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Drinking game may have preceded fraternity pledge’s death"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Pixabay<\/a>
“Bible Study” meant that pledges at the Phi Delta Theta house had to drink if they incorrectly answered questions about the fraternity. (Pixabay photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BATON ROUGE, La. — A Louisiana State University fraternity pledge may have been forced to drink to excess during a game or initiation ritual called \u201cBible Study\u201d on the night before his death last month, according to newly released police reports.<\/p>\n

\u201cBible Study\u201d meant that pledges at the Phi Delta Theta house had to drink if they incorrectly answered questions about the fraternity during a gathering the night before 18-year-old Maxwell Gruver died, LSU police said in affidavits filed in court Monday.<\/p>\n

A witness told police that Gruver was \u201chighly intoxicated\u201d when fraternity members laid him on a couch and left the house sometime early on Sept. 14. Around 11 a.m., members found Gruver still on the couch with a weak pulse and couldn’t tell if he was breathing, police said. Two people drove him to a hospital, where the freshman from Roswell, Georgia, died that day.<\/p>\n

Police are investigating Gruver’s death as a possible result of fraternity hazing. The fraternity’s national office said it closed the chapter after Gruver’s death.<\/p>\n

A coroner said hospital tests found a \u201chighly elevated\u201d blood-alcohol level in Gruver’s body.<\/p>\n

Witness statements \u201cindicated that the pledges were forced to drink in excess. Several of the pledges stated that they received a group text message stating there would be ‘Bible Study’ at the house\u201d at 10 p.m. on Sept. 13, a police affidavit said.<\/p>\n

Police executed search warrants at the fraternity house and at Gruver’s dorm room. Among the items seized from the fraternity house were a duffel bag filled with beer cans, bottles of liquor, a glass smoking pipe, a \u201cpledge test,\u201d cleaning supplies and two strands of white knotted rope, according to a search warrant return.<\/p>\n

Police also found devices that may have captured video footage inside the fraternity house \u201cduring the times of the events,\u201d a police affidavit says.<\/p>\n

Investigators seized a cellphone belonging to the fraternity member who sent the group text message about the \u201cBible Study\u201d session.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestigators also learned that there were several text messages sent about (Gruver’s) condition,\u201d the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

Police also obtained a warrant to examine Gruver’s phone so they could see who he called or texted before his death.<\/p>\n

In a letter dated Sept. 21, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards asked leaders of the state’s higher-education system to review their campus policies on hazing, alcohol and drugs following Gruver’s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne loss of life to hazing or drug and alcohol abuse is too many, and I know that you share my very serious concerns,\u201d Edwards wrote, asking them to report their findings and recommendations to his office by Oct. 29.<\/p>\n

East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore has said police interviewed many fraternity members but some had refused to give a statement and were hiring lawyers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BATON ROUGE, La. — A Louisiana State University fraternity pledge may have been forced to drink to excess during a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":121201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24157,16],"tags":[25986,6814,25985,25988,25987],"class_list":["post-121199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-american-news","category-news","tag-bible-study","tag-fraternity","tag-louisiana-state-university","tag-maxwell-gruver","tag-phi-delta-theta","mauthors-michael-kunzelman","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}