ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) – The trial of four members of Florida A&M University’s marching band on charges of felony hazing and manslaughter was scheduled to start Monday, nearly three years after drum major Robert Champion died from being beaten.
His death has shone a spotlight on a hazing ritual at FAMU known as “crossing Bus C,” and caused the band – which had played at the Super Bowl and before U.S. presidents – to be suspended for over a year. It also contributed to the resignation of the university’s president.
Hours after a football game in Orlando in November 2011, band members boarded Bus C parked outside a hotel. They pummeled Champion, 26, and two other band members as they tried to wade their way through a pounding gauntlet of fists, drumsticks and mallets from the front to the back of the bus.
After making it to the back, Champion vomited and complained of trouble breathing. He soon fell unconscious and couldn’t be revived. He died from hemorrhagic shock and his autopsy showed extensive internal bleeding.
Fifteen former band members originally were charged with manslaughter and hazing in the death of Champion, of Decatur, Georgia. All but the four remaining defendants have had their cases settled, and several of them will be called as witnesses to describe what happened on the bus.