Basketball player dead after possible frat hazing incident


Apr 19 2016

A college basketball player from Brooklyn died after a possible hazing incident near his school, Buffalo State College.

Bradley Doyley, 21, a point guard who planned to graduate this spring, had been in and out of a Buffalo hospital in the last several weeks before dying Thursday night.

Buffalo police were investigating an allegation that a fraternity he was looking to join, Alpha Phi Alpha, was involved in the hazing, the school said.

The player’s friends said they believed Doyley may have been forced to ingest a dangerous fluid.

“I was in the weight room and heard he was pledging and was made to drink some type of toxic substance,” football player Dametrius Brown told the Buffalo News. “I keep hearing different stories. First it was detergent, then some said sewer water.”

The campus chapter of the fraternity was suspended.

The fraternity refused to comment “at this time.’’

College president Katherine S. Conway-Turner said Doyley “was a valued member of the Bengals men’s basketball team . . . and was well regarded by his peers, professors, and former coaches.

“His loss will undoubtedly be felt throughout our community.”

Doyley’s basketball coach said the player had been ill and was admitted to the hospital late last month.

“He called me from the hospital Jan. 29 to say he felt sick,” the coach, Fajri Ansari, told the Buffalo News.

“He thought it might have been something bad he ate.”

Doyley was discharged from the hospital shortly after, but had to be readmitted, his coach said.

His family traveled to Buffalo from Canarsie to be with Doyley as he became severely ill.

“He was an amazing brother and son, the best you could ask for,” Doyley’s sister, Sherelle Wint, told the paper.

His friend, Monique Maxwell, said “He was outgoing. He had positive energy all the time.

“He was always upbeat.”

In an interview from 2012 posted on YouTube, Doyley talked about his role with the team in his sophomore year.

“I focused on what I really needed to do to help carry on my team,” he said. “I tried to develop as a player and work on what I need to help our team go far.”

Hazed for Months Before Jumping


Apr 19 2016
Penn State-Altoona student ‘hazed for months’ by Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity before jumping to death from roof of New York hotel

The family of a Penn State-Altoona student who jumped to his death off the roof of a New York hotel sued the university and a suspended fraternity alleging that he killed himself because of hazing.

The suit alleges that Marquise Braham “had been hazed for months” by members of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity before he died in March 2014.

A Penn State spokeswoman declined comment, citing the pending litigation, but officials said the chapter was suspended for six years following Braham’s death and is barred from using university facilities or participating in campus events.

The fraternity’s national organization in Indianapolis said officials hadn’t seen the results of law enforcement investigations, but the activities alleged in the lawsuit, if proven true, “are in direct violation of the fraternity’s standards and expectations as well as its express anti-hazing policies.” The national fraternity said it “continues to cooperate with all authorities associated with the investigation.”

The freshman was forced to “consume gross amounts of alcohol” and mouthwash, swallow live fish, and kill, gut and skin animals, the suit alleges. The suit also claims he was made to fight fellow pledges, was burned with candle wax, was deprived of sleep for 89 hours and had a gun held to his head as part of the hazing activities.

After he was accepted as a member of the fraternity, Braham had to be present for hazing the next class of pledges, and later texted a friend that some of the hazing activities were “hard to watch,” the suit said.

“He struggled deeply with having to witness and participate in the hazing of others,” and he killed himself the day before he was to return to the fraternity, the suit said.

University staff knew that he was “suffering physically, psychologically and academically” but disregarded the information, the suit alleges.

“In my family’s opinion, both Penn State and Phi Sigma Kappa severely damaged our son, both physically and mentally, with hazing activities and even worse, sought to allegedly cover it up by destroying evidence,” his father, Richard Braham, said in a statement.

Student’s Bizarre Death Linked to Hazing

The talented Bradley Doyley may have been forced to drink a toxic substance

Authorities are investigating whether a hazing ritual caused the unexplained illness that led to a Buffalo State College student’s death.

Bradley Doyley, 21, was set to graduate from the New York college with a business major this spring, WGRZ reports. He was admitted to Buffalo General Hospital on Jan. 29 and died there Thursday.

Police are investigating allegations that Doyley was hazed at an off-campus location of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, where he may been pledging. That chapter is now suspended, according to reports.

Grieving friends and family painted a gruesome picture of Doyley’s symptoms after he was allegedly forced to drink an unidentified toxic cocktail.

“He was throwing up blood,” family friend Michael Panton told the New York Daily News on behalf of Doyley’s mother. “They had to take him into surgery and cut open his stomach. She asked us to keep him in our prayers.”

Doyley played for the college’s Bengals basketball team, and was known as a man who had his path set.

“His parents are devastated, his sister is broken, his brother is hurt,” his cousin, Marsha Green, told the Daily News. “He was their baby, he had such a bright future. No one was expecting this.”

Buffalo State President Katherine Conway-Turner released a statement after Doyley’s death, eulogizing the “valued” student and acknowledging the investigation:

Buffalo State College is aware of and continues to support the City of Buffalo Police Department’s investigation into an allegation of hazing involving Alpha Phi Alpha and Bradley Doyley at an off-campus location. While the investigation is conducted, the campus chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha has been suspended by both the college and the fraternity’s national governing body.

All recognized Greek letter organizations and their members are required by the college to abide by the student code of conduct, the campus Greek recognition and governance policies, and New York State anti-hazing laws. In addition to possible criminal prosecution, failure to abide by these rules can result in suspension or expulsion from Buffalo State.

Police wouldn’t comment further pending the results of an autopsy.

Alpha Phi Alpha has had a history of hazing investigations. In 2012, the University of Florida temporarily suspended its chapter of the fraternity after a “serious hazing incident,” and in 2014, an Alpha pledge sued, claiming that he was hazed while attempting to join the chapter at Bowie State University, the Daily News reports.

According to its website, Alpha Phi Alpha is a historically black fraternity founded at Cornell University in 1906, and has a firm policy against hazing.