FAMU Chief of Police Calvin Ross defended his department’s authority to conduct preliminary investigations of reported hazing incidents before turning the cases over to other law enforcement agencies.The FAMU Department of Public Safety has come under fire for not immediately informing the Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) when it was told about a suspected off-campus hazing involving the university’s Delta Iota Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity.
Ross told the Orlando Sentinel that his department did not immediatley transfer the case to TPD because it was carrying out its own preliminary investigation. FAMU police have the authority to investigate possible criminal activity by student organizations registered on the campus even if some of the alleged activities are suspected to have taken place off university property.
"There was nothing unusual or out of order," Ross told WCTV-6. "We work off-campus hazing cases too."
Ross said 90 percent of the hazing cases that his department investigates involve off-campus incidents.
"There is no requirement that if a case does not originate on campus that we have to turn it over to an outside agency. The investigators had every intention of working this case through to the end," Ross said in a WCTV-6 interview.
Former band director Julian White told FAMUPD about the alleged incident on Nov. 21. TPD called for FAMU for information about the case after learning about it from a media report on Jan. 20. TPD received the case file on Jan. 23 and began its investigation on that date.
Ross said the alleged Kappa Kappa Psi hazing was part of a set of cases his detectives were investigating at the same time.
"They were working all of these cases somewhat collectively," Ross said. "There was no foot dragging on this at all."
According to WCTV-6, Ross said FAMUPD was originally told that the hazing took place in spring 2011, rather than 2010. That meant the department did not have to rush in order to get ahead of the two-year statute of limitations for misdemeanor hazing. The statute of limitations for felony hazing is three years.
The executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat claims that the FAMU administration misled the FAMU Board of Trustees about the status of the Kappa Kappa Psi case.
“FAMU was not truthful in its report to its Board of Trustees when it said the case was being investigated by TPD, whether intentional or another example of mismanagement,” Bob Gabordi wrote in his blog.
But Gabordi’s newspaper has not published a quote that shows a FAMU official telling the board that the case was under TPD investigation.
A “Having investigation time line” published by the Democrat on March 29 did write the following: “Early January 2012: A compilation of reports of hazing is provided to FAMU Board of Trustees members. Included on the list is reference to the allegations presented Nov. 21. The list says the case's outcome is ‘Off Campus/Tallahassee Police.’”
The fact that the case was listed as “Off Campus/Tallahassee Police” is not the same as saying that a TPD investigation had started. Even though the FAMUPD designated the case as one that would eventually be turned over to TPD, it still had the authority to do its own preliminary investigation before transferring the case file.