TRAGIC

FAMU Drum Major Robert Champion May Have Died From Hazing

Parents hope to stop violent “tradition” at FAMU.

The parents and attorney of Robert Champion, a drum major at Florida A&M University who was killed on Nov. 19, say that evidence show the student died from a violent hazing episode. According to police and former band members, Champion was probably forced to walk through a “gauntlet of fists,” which caused him to vomit and lose his breath when he collapsed on a bus parked outside a hotel in Orlando. The 26-year-old died later at a nearby hospital. His parents are suing the school, and possibly the band director, who was fired shortly after Champion’s death. “It needs to stop,” his mother said in a news conference today. “No one wants to hear your son collapsed and died. We want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”