Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) Officer Shane Porter, who investigated an alleged hazing incident within FAMU’s Delta Iota Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity, said a Tallahassee Democrat article about the case might have negatively affected his attempts to contact suspects and witnesses.Porter made the statement in his report includes while recounting a discussion with FAMU Music Professor Longineu Parsons. Parsons was the individual who told ex-FAMU Director of Bands Julian White about the alleged hazing. White then turned the information over to the FAMU police.
“On January 30, 2012, I spoke with Longineu Parsons via telephone,” Porter wrote. “Parsons was extremely upset at the fact that the Tallahassee Democrat had run a story in the paper on January 28, 2012, before the conclusion of the investigation. He was upset because when he was contacted by the Tallahassee Democrat reporter, he specifically asked them not to print the story yet so it wouldn’t hinder the investigation. I informed him that the story had likely hurt the speed at which the investigation would take place due to the fact that I wasn’t able to get anyone to return my phone calls after the story was printed.”
This part of Parson’s report led Tallahassee Democrat Executive Editor Bob Gabordi to write the following response on his blog: “The case also provides insight into the culture of secrecy, with key players involved in the investigation complaining – including the person who reported the incident and the TPD officer investigating the case – that the Tallahassee Democrat had slowed down the investigation or hindered it somehow. Never mind that there would have been no investigation were it not for the Democrat’s reporter doing her job.”
The FAMU Department of Public Safety was already investigating the case long before the Tallahassee Democrat printed anything. FAMU police received White’s report about the alleged hazing on Nov. 21, 2011.
FAMU Chief of Police Calvin Ross told the Orlando Sentinel that his department did not immediately 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. He also says 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.
TPD learned about the case from a media report on Jan. 20 and asked FAMU’s Department of Public Safety for the case file. TPD received the case file on Jan. 23 and began its own investigation on that date.