NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A fraternity at Rutgers University in New Brunswick has been closed after an investigation found hazing allegedly led to a 19-year-old student being critically injured during an incident last week.
The national chapter of Alpha Sigma Phi made the announcement on Friday, saying they have closed the fraternity’s chapter at Rutgers following their own investigation.
They say all members of the chapter “directly or indirectly involved will be permanently expelled” after they found “hazing occurred.”
“We will fully cooperate with both the University and the Prosecutor on their investigations,” Alpha Sigma Phi International Fraternity’s president and CEO said in a statement. ” We hope that through the University conduct process and the criminal process, the maximum penalties will be imposed to send a strong message – hazing is illegal and will not be condoned or tolerated.”
Residents of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity are still packing up after the disturbing admission.
The incident happened on the night of Wednesday, October 15.
Officials with the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office say police rushed to a home on College Avenue in New Brunswick a little after midnight for an unresponsive 19-year-old student.
The student was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in critical condition.
In an update on Friday, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office said that the injured student is still in the hospital but is out of critical condition.
A source close to the investigation told WABC-TV the student may have come into contact with a strong electric current while in the basement at Alpha Sigma Phi.
Police believe the room was dark at the time.
The house had been shuttered earlier this week, according to New Brunswick officials, after the building had been deemed unsafe and uninhabitable due to multiple violations.
The last inspections took place in mid-September.
Students say dangerous hazing incidents should not be part of modern college life.
“Well, of course, I don’t know too much on the situation, but I really think that hazing of any sort is really such a terrible thing,” one person said. “And it’s like when we’re going to college, you try to experience these new things and get really involved in friendship and brotherhood.”
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