Olivia Medovich
Staff writer
The University has suspended all fraternity social activities until further notice after two incidents violating University policies occurred at the Alpha Gamma Rho and Alpha Tau Omega fraternity houses last weekend.
Two former Murray State football players were arrested at the ATO house Saturday morning after allegedly assaulting De’Vin Graves, a non-student who attended a party hosted by the fraternity.
Sgt. Scott Svebakken with the Murray Police Department said the fight started after Graves was trying to defend a female who was being harassed.
The fight started around 2 a.m. and resulted in Graves being sent to the Murray-Calloway County Hospital emergency room. On Tuesday, Graves had surgery on his jaw at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Murray Police responded to the call from the hospital where they spoke with Graves.
Victor Daniels, junior from Waycross, Ga., has been arrested on a warrant charging him with sexual abuse in the third degree.
Ryan Walker, senior from Los Angeles, Calif., has been arrested on a warrant charging him with assault in the second degree.
Daniels and Walker are not members of the ATO fraternity.
Heath Keller, ATO adviser, said he was made aware of the fight on Monday and does not believe any of the ATO members were involved with the fight.
“We are still investigating,” Keller said. “With things like this it is hard to nail down what happened.”
He said the fight occurred in the parking lot near the street at the back of the house after the party was over.
The second incident occurred around 3 a.m. Sunday morning at the AGR house.
Catherine Sivills, assistant vice president for communications, said a 17-year-old girl, a non-student, had to be taken to the hospital to be treated for suspected alcohol poisoning after attending a party at the AGR house.
Sivills said the University’s policy does not permit minors to attend any Greek associated party.
She said the University is still gathering information regarding both incidents and takes them very seriously.
“It is certainly unfortunate,” Sivills said. “These events seem to occur when you have alcohol involved. We put policies in place so things like this do not happen so it is frustrating when this does.”
President Randy Dunn said the University will handle the disciplinary actions in a straight forward way.
“If the Greek organizations want the responsibility for undertaking these things, which I understand and sympathize with, they’ve got to show that they can handle those responsibilities, and in these last couple of incidents that hasn’t been the case,” Dunn said.
He said the social activities for Greek life have been put hold pending review through spring break to make sure similar occurrences do not happen again.
“Through Greek Life we want to make sure the things we require of our Greek organizations have been fulfilled in terms of the obligations they place on themselves if they want to host a party as well as through our judicial structure doing review of the student’s behavior and taking action on that,” Dunn said.
Both cases remain under investigation with the University and local law enforcement.
