UWM Fraternity Suspended For Secretly Drugging Women At Party
A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee fraternity is being investigated by police for allegedly slipping date rape drugs into the drinks of several women who attended a party at the frat house on September 12.
CBS News reports that several women who attended a party hosted by the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity became ill, and two had to be taken to the hospital.
Police executed a search warrant on the fraternity house on Tuesday after receiving three separate calls from the Sandburg Residence Hall, a dorm on campus, when female students returned to the hall acting extremely intoxicated and unable to stand or walk.
According to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, all of the affected women had attended the party at the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity house, and all of them had red Xs marked on their hands.
The University issued the following statement on Twitter, announcing the suspension of the fraternity pending police investigation.
Today UWM suspended the TKE fraternity on an interim basis while police conduct their investigation. Safety of our students is our (1/2)
— UW-Milwaukee (@UWM) September 19, 2014
The national TKE organization also told The Huffington Post that it has temporarily suspended the Zeta-Zeta chapter of the fraternity, and will work with the university to look into the charges.
The fraternity brothers were apparently using a color-coding system and drugging the women marked with red Xs. A man, who police found vomiting into a trash can near the dorm where the affected women lived, had a black X on his hand. He told police he had a drink from the cup of his female friend who had a red X.
Police entered the party about 1:20 a.m. and found 42 people in the basement, all under age and drinking alcohol.
An unidentified woman told WDJT about a similar experience that one of her friends had at the same party.
“One of my friends brought her back, he was just being a good guy, and he brought her back because all these dudes were hitting on her and making out with her, and she was seemingly really wasted.”
Another student, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of backlash, told WDJT, “They have been known for having parties where they do drug people. One of my friends was at a party there once and said she saw some really ugly things. She was very uncomfortable. She called me to come get her.”
One of the women taken to the hospital told investigators that she only remembered having three drinks before passing out and waking up in the hospital. She told police that she bought an “all-access to the house” index card for $8, which offered free drinks from one of the bars inside the house.
“You have to be hot” to get one of the cards, she told them. “This is how it usually is, girls always get wasted there.”
University spokesman Tom Lujak said, “We are deeply concerned about these allegations because the safety of our students is our number one priority. Our police are aggressively pursuing this investigation to determine exactly what happened and who may have been involved.”
The fraternity president has been arrested in connection to the suspected drugging, and could face charges pending the District Attorney’s review. At this time, there have been no reports of sexual assaults connected to the incident.
Date rape has become a growing concern on campuses, as evidenced by this Inquistir report of a Georgia Tech fraternity suspended earlier this year for distributing an email giving date rape tips.
[Photo courtesy of Gallery Hip]
