New allegations of band hazing officials looking for a way to stop a problem they thought had been tamed
TALLAHASSEE, FLA.
Hit a wrong note on the trumpet and get whacked on the elbow with a mouthpiece.
Miss a dance step and get pummeled in the head by fellow band
members taunting with the sing-song rhyme “Little Bunny Foo Foo.”
Get invited to a party, only to be ordered to squat in “The
Thinker” position and get paddled so many times your buttocks swell.
Public records from Florida A&M University (FAMU) police reveal
a pattern of abusive hazing in the Marching 100 band that has gone on
for years.
Known around the world as a great college band, FAMU’s Marching 100
have strutted dazzling high-stepping, body-twisting moves from
Washington to Paris.
But to its members and university officials, the band is notorious
for something else: humiliating and beating freshmen members as part of
a hazing ritual that goes back four decades.
