You simply drunk, so I took into
my room, putting in my couch,
put pillows in his head in the.
In the trash can there.
This is an upperclassman explaining
what happened in the hours leading
up to this chaotic morning in 2019,
when paramedics and police arrived at
the Alpha Tau Omega or Ato House to find
freshman Sam Martinez unresponsive inside
just three months into his college career.
The night before, Ato held its annual
Big Little event where pledges find
out the identity of their Big Brothers.
The ritual includes upper Classmen giving
their family drink to their little brothers.
He was one of my Littles,
hired 2 Littles and the other
guy and I had a half gal.
Sam's Big Brother tells police
the half gallon was spiced rum,
the equivalent of 40 shots to share
between Sam and another pledge.
Approximately 6 hours later,
Sam was dead in the basement of the
fraternity from acute alcohol poisoning.
45 minutes just to make sure.
No telling that you just fast asleep.
You know, I thought you just gonna
sleep with you. Wake up but.
How could that still be happening? In 2019 or
2022, Jolene Howitz is Sam's mother.
Just this ridiculous cycle.
And why would you repeat?
Pass some mistakes when you
you know it's not working,
when were they gonna take it seriously?
Were you visiting with Sam for a few minutes?
Yeah, uh, probably 2 minutes tops.
The King 5 investigators reviewed nearly
35 hours of homeland police interviews.
They show the fraternity members weren't
taking hazing seriously because they
didn't appear to understand the concept.
I never once forced him to drink
over and over pledges, and members
told police the night Sam died.
No one was forced to drink,
sharing the family drink was
for bonding, not hazing.
I think it's just a tradition like
usually your Big Brother buys you.
It goes back home. In the year of
the option to find a ticket or not,
don't have to finish the bottle,
or they're not forced to.
It's all heroes.
They will pretty much.
That's what you wanna drink.
OK, and they're not forcing
it down your throat, but
force has nothing to do with
it according to state law.
Hazing includes any activity
expected of someone joining a group,
likely to cause a risk of harm,
regardless of the person's
willingness to participate.
Mandatory, but like it's like, encouraged
some of the pledges, said it was.
Expected they finished the bottle, but
they still didn't consider that hazing. We
were supposed to finish the ball at all.
So your thought process was
as they bought it for us.
So we need to drink it all. Yeah,
coercion is present even when the members
are told what they're doing is voluntary.
Newer of Indiana has
researched hazing for 40 years.
Pledges will will go through incredible
lengths to try to please the Members.
Newer maintains a database of.
All hazing related deaths in
the country going back to 1838,
he's recorded 280 lives lost,
16 young men died after big little nights,
just like Sam Martinez, where Big
Brothers give the gift of alcohol.
This idea of giving something is part
of this idea. Why it's not voluntary?
Because I have to give you something back.
In this case, it sounds
like drink the bottle,
consume the whole bottle and do it fast.
They had to clean
the floor with toothbrushes like.
While they shut off the all the
lights in the pitch black cream
and we're like slam on the ground
for them to clean up.
The police interviews reveal.
While they didn't realize it,
they ate 2 pledges were hazed multiple
times before the big little night,
including freshmen like Sam made to clean
on their hands and knees in the dark.
We had to clean the party
floor with toothbrushes.
It just sucks that we have to use
toothbrushes but like it wasn't that bad.
How did that stuff make you feel?
Did it make you feel to good to clean up?
Somebody else's puke.
Somebody else's drunken mess.
How did that make you feel?
But all the all the classes above me
who have had to do the same exact thing
every single week like and some of
them have had to do way worse.
Police records show more
examples of hazing punishments,
like eating onions,
drinking an unknown mixture with
hot sauce and physical tasks.
One pledge described the
upperclassman's thinking process.
Make them do anything I can,
make them do pushups.
I can make them do a lawsuit. I
can make them do jumping jacks and
singing the national anthem like three
times in a row because we did that.
I know everybody's like,
oh he's so bad but like I
would not consider that hazing,
I would just consider that like he's drunk.
He's telling us to do something
stupid and we did it. Being willing
to do something that is going to
be potentially harmful to you.
That's what he's in is
Coleman Police Chief Gary Jenkins
is an outspoken advocate for
ending the culture of hazing.
Even when everyone involved thinks
it's harmless, experts say any
type of hazing is dangerous.
You can't predict the outcome like
triggering a past trauma for someone.
Certain guys wouldn't get broken down,
then other guys, wouldn't they
like I've seen kids cry and just
stay in the room and not come out?
Yeah, I've just seen kids be
broken down before for sure,
and no one at the fraternity
predicted the ultimate consequence.
Sam Martinez dying after a party featuring
brotherhood, alcohol and hazing.
As time passes, my fear is that
the thoughts of the consequences
of hazing are going to pass.
And maybe Sam Martinez's death
causes that whole culture to change.
This story does point out a
major flaw in the system,
even though right now there's mandatory
hazing training for most fraternities.
It's obviously not working a new
state law called Sam's law goes
into effect in just a few weeks,
and that requires much more thorough
training for every College in Washington.
And it requires schools
to be more transparent.
Now they have to list all fraternity
and sorority infractions such
as hazing on their official
college website in The Newsroom.
I'm Susannah frame.