KSDK 5 report on the situation

[DirtyRican]

The allegations involved 3 players, with 1 other just being in the same apartment. 1 of the 3, plus the other 1 have since transferred, that's why there's 2 now.

Also, there's NO way they would be facing a year for alcohol violations, absolutely no way. The punishment for that is very clear, and it's no where near as severe as what supposedly might happen.

I agree, no way a year for alcohol. Heck, I got drunk and peed in an ice maker in Greis. All I got was a ban on the dorm and a 3 day vacation from practice.

[TheA_Bomb]

This is what I know from 5 years as a law enforcement officer: you can indict a ham sandwich. It is very telling that no charges were brought against these guys. So for this hearing there is either he said she said or it is a hearing based on violation of other rules. Those other rules: drinking, substance abuse, lewd activity. That is just an educated guess.

Drinking underage is against the rules we know, co-habitation is against the rules we know. Both don't normally carry that tough of penalties, at least not in 1996.

So is the decision based on the type of sexual activity which some may find particularly disgusting? Probably. That's real dangerous for the school and we see the news already raising the race card issue. I hate the race card and feel that this would've been a story if it had been any high level athlete but I can see how some would believe it is racially motivated. The thought of large black men forcing themselves on a drunk, innocent, young white girl. The horror!

They don't know the whole story. If there were a story there it would've been prosecuted under the law, the real law but there isn't. Your local cops get calls like this nearly every single day and they get real good at sifting through the BS. They did not go forward. So we can close the book on the thought that it is assault.

These things really p#ss me off. Take note male readers this is not just how SLU operates this is the world we live in now. You get accused whether you did something or not you are guilty. Playing the rape, sexual harassment card is the same as playing the race card. It seems about 90% of the time it is a bunch of bull the problem is that the other 10% when it isn't bull is diminished by the lies. The real problem is that even though people know it is bull there still needs to be punishments because you can't appear soft on those things. Then there are the Dudley-Do-Rights of the world who feel just by putting yourself in a position to be accused you did wrong. They don't realize that just by picking up a ball at SLU you put yourself in that position or walking someone back to their dorm or not returning someone's feelings all those are ways to become accused. Anyone can accuse anyone else it is done by women and they will receive no repurcussions what-so-ever.

I'm not hopeful in this situation, I've been jaded by the harsh realities of this world.

[joe_davola]

I agree, no way a year for alcohol. Heck, I got drunk and peed in an ice maker in Greis. All I got was a ban on the dorm and a 3 day vacation from practice.

Guess that is what happens when you give lightweights 3 Busch Lights and 4 cigs.

[joe_davola]

Thats what I think is going on here. If they concluded a sexual assault occurred they'd have to expel them. I think they are giving them a year for drinking because they think something more may have happened but don't have the facts to find anything beyond alcohol violations. So they're coming down hard on them.

Please send 'The Dude' to this Student Body office so he can lay the smack down..Thanks KM. See you 108.

[kmbilliken]

I agree, no way a year for alcohol. Heck, I got drunk and peed in an ice maker in Greis. All I got was a ban on the dorm and a 3 day vacation from practice.

No way they found these guys guilty of sexual assault. If they do that they have to expel them. If they find them guilty of sexual assault and let them come back to school and one of them does it again they'll be on the hook to victim #2. They can't take that chance.

[kmbilliken]

Please send 'The Dude' to this Student Body office so he can lay the smack down..Thanks KM. See you 108.

Talked to The Dude about this this morning and he says its too late. If he had been able to be there that night she would have sent a thank you note.

[joe_davola]

No way they found these guys guilty of sexual assault. If they do that they have to expel them. If they find them guilty of sexual assault and let them come back to school and one of them does it again they'll be on the hook to victim #2. They can't take that chance.

Yeah, good point. It could just be a harsh penalty for multiple drinking incidents. Maybe they had prior drinking incidents stacked up against them. I have no evidence of this, just speculation. I also agree with prior posters that if they admitted to drinking beer, and this was the first time anything like that was on their record, this would not bring on a year suspension. Something more going on than the drinking, and something less than the assault charges. Who knows at this point though. I agree though...if this had anything to do with sexual assault, if the 'Board' or whatever the hell they are, thought there was any truth to it, they would lay the hammer down and expel them. Just my opinion...

[AlumniFan]

I'll echo the comments of TheChosenOne earlier in this thread. We had a friend who was expelled after our first semester at SLU after a situation like this occurred in early October that year. She reported the incident about a week after the fact after letting her friends talk her into it and he had an example made of him by this court. The students, faculty, and whoever else is on this thing had their minds made up before it started. They moved him to the far end of the basement in Fusz, put up statistics about sexual assualt on all the corkboards in the dorms, and he was gone after the semester.

This had serious impacts on his life after that. It was basically a night where everyone drank a bunch, and he went back to his room with a girl. I think there was a little regret on both ends the next day but it wasn't justified, what she did to him. It's a scary precedent that anyone, anytime, could regret what they did the night before and punish the other person for it.

I guess what I'm saying is that the fact that this still didn't seem to be finalized by the school's judicial board last year has had me nervous ever since the story first broke. People here seemed sure that when it was dismissed for lack of evidence initially, it was over. But as my friend experienced firsthand in 2001, SLU's judicial board does not require any criminal evidence whatsoever to decide against a defendant.

It tears me up inside that so many sexual assaults go unreported and then drunken hook-ups, questionable at best, where both sides are playing equal roles can permanently affect someone's life in a bad way. If everyone acted on "man, I shouldn't have done that last night", SLU's campus would be a ghost town.

For what it's worth, one of the players in question was at the Homecoming festivities this past weekend and one was not.

I knew we weren't out of the woods on this. This situation sucks all around. We beg for local coverage of the program and can't get it until a terrible off-court event takes place. Two players' careers and lives could be dramatically altered. Our program's short- and long-term success is in serious jeopardy.

It's hard work being a SLU fan.

This is well said. It is really sad that the rules are structured in such a way to potentially ruin some kid's life because he had too much to drink. To be clear, I am NOT talking about real assault of any kind, I am talking about two students having too much to drink, doing what thousands and thousands of students across the country do EVERY FRIDAY/SATURDAY night and then, for some reason, the guy's life turns into a living nightmare. In these instances I think BOTH students, the male and the female, should be expelled IF the male is expelled. They BOTH chose to drink too much, they BOTH chose to go back to someone's room, they BOTH engaged in certain acts. They BOTH made poor decisions; why should gender be the deciding factor in who is punished? That flies in the face of both logical and the desire by women to be treated equally.

[AlumniFan]

so all i have to do to exclude responsibility for anything is drunkeness? i need to remember that.

obviously not, there still needs to be some responsibility but if both parties are drunk then why is only one being blamed?...

Bingo

[For-DaLove]

Let me say once again, there is zero chance this is solely about alcohol violations. Even if it was a 3rd violation, the punishment would simply be you couldn't live in on-campus housing, there would be no such suspension. And I believe a 4th violation is that you are kicked out of the school for good. So please stop with the specualtion that it could be because of underage drinking; it's not. It may play a role in the whole situation, but there's no way it's the sole reason.

[JohnnyJumpUp]

obviously not, there still needs to be some responsibility but if both parties are drunk then why is only one being blamed?...

I'm guessing only one side is in the spotlight because the other side no longer attends the university, and only current students would go in front of the school's judicial board.

[SluSignGuy]

Thats what I think is going on here. If they concluded a sexual assault occurred they'd have to expel them.

(Again) Good Point.

[slufan13]

I think we all agree that if there was sexual assault, they'd be expelled. I also guess none of us know what caused the one year suspension. No way is underage drinking the sole reason. It shouldn't be a reason at all. Also, they can't just suspend them because there name was brought up in the incident. Maybe there was a minor incident this summer that we don't know about. Maybe the suspensions will get reduced or taken away. It will be interesting to see how this plays out by the end of the week.

[HusakAttack]

I think we all agree that if there was sexual assault, they'd be expelled. I also guess none of us know what caused the one year suspension. No way is underage drinking the sole reason. It shouldn't be a reason at all. Also, they can't just suspend them because there name was brought up in the incident. Maybe there was a minor incident this summer that we don't know about. Maybe the suspensions will get reduced or taken away. It will be interesting to see how this plays out by the end of the week.

Exactly so we should all stop freaking out and making up assumptions and presenting them as fact. We will get the facts soon enough. Until then lets just polish our CBI runner-up plaquwe and listen to jokes from BillikenROAR!

[P.B.]

The only problem is that in admitting to being drunk they open themselves up to what I assume is going on right now: Being suspended for a year for drinking/substance abuse.

Even if they admitted to being drunk they would not face much of a penalty. Barry Eberhardt had a party where we used the Gatorade jugs to concoct jungle juice and campus security or whatever they are called showed up and he got in trouble but didn't miss any time. To think that admitting to drinking underage would lead to a years suspension is absolutely absurd

[saluki762]

Even if they admitted to being drunk they would not face much of a penalty. Barry Eberhardt had a party where we used the Gatorade jugs to concoct jungle juice and campus security or whatever they are called showed up and he got in trouble but didn't miss any time. To think that admitting to drinking underage would lead to a years suspension is absolutely absurd

The big difference in situations that there was no alleged sexual assault at BE's party and it never made the news. Needless to say this is a little higher profile.

[billikenfan05]

Even if they admitted to being drunk they would not face much of a penalty. Barry Eberhardt had a party where we used the Gatorade jugs to concoct jungle juice and campus security or whatever they are called showed up and he got in trouble but didn't miss any time. To think that admitting to drinking underage would lead to a years suspension is absolutely absurd

I was merely attempting to explain that I think they'd find it hard to suspend them for an alleged sexual assault. I figure its the same as when a mobster murders someone and the prosecutor can't prove it so they get them on some other crime like tax evasion.

[P.B.]

I was merely attempting to explain that I think they'd find it hard to suspend them for an alleged sexual assault. I figure its the same as when a mobster murders someone and the prosecutor can't prove it so they get them on some other crime like tax evasion.

I find it very easy to believe they would suspend then for a sexual assualt/encounter. I look at it like the Big Ben case. He was not charged charged by the police but was suspended by the NFL and you know that SLU's policy is stricter then the NFL. I think it is past the point of using the word alleged you should stop fantasizing about the players and face the realization that something not good went down and that is why SLU basketball is in trouble

[bsheldon]

Westy--brutal CBI comment. Hilarious, but brutal.

[brianstl]

I find it very easy to believe they would suspend then for a sexual assualt/encounter. I look at it like the Big Ben case. He was not charged charged by the police but was suspended by the NFL and you know that SLU's policy is stricter then the NFL. I think it is past the point of using the word alleged you should stop fantasizing about the players and face the realization that something not good went down and that is why SLU basketball is in trouble

Big Ben wasn't suspended for a sexual assualt. If the NFL would have tried to suspend him for that they would have been sued. Big Ben was suspended for a pattern of personal behavior that violated the NFL personal conduct policy.

[billikenfan05]

I find it very easy to believe they would suspend then for a sexual assualt/encounter. I look at it like the Big Ben case. He was not charged charged by the police but was suspended by the NFL and you know that SLU's policy is stricter then the NFL. I think it is past the point of using the word alleged you should stop fantasizing about the players and face the realization that something not good went down and that is why SLU basketball is in trouble

It's still alledged! Nothing has been proven so that's why I use the word. I am positive something went down but don't think it was criminal. Immoral and f*****d up? Probably but criminal? I don't believe so.

[Billiken2damax]

I find it very easy to believe they would suspend then for a sexual assualt/encounter. I look at it like the Big Ben case. He was not charged charged by the police but was suspended by the NFL and you know that SLU's policy is stricter then the NFL. I think it is past the point of using the word alleged you should stop fantasizing about the players and face the realization that something not good went down and that is why SLU basketball is in trouble

"past the point of using the word alleged"

+1

[P.B.]

Big Ben wasn't suspended for a sexual assualt. If the NFL would have tried to suspend him for that they would have been sued. Big Ben was suspended for a pattern of personal behavior that violated the NFL personal conduct policy.

That pattern included pulling his crank out and violating a female in a bathroom at a bar, I think that is considered sexual assault. You can call it whatever you want.

[P.B.]

It's still alledged! Nothing has been proven so that's why I use the word. I am positive something went down but don't think it was criminal. Immoral and f*****d up? Probably but criminal? I don't believe so.

If someone is kicked off the team, suspended or penalized in any way will you then acknowledge that it is no longer alledged? Hasn't a not so good ruling been already handed down that is currently being appealed?

I have no problems with immoral things like threesomes and the cleveland steamer but there is more to this story than you are willing to recognize

[brianstl]

That pattern included pulling his crank out and violating a female in a bathroom at a bar, I think that is considered sexual assault. You can call it whatever you want.

Actually that wasn't inluded in the ruling by the commisioner, but I guess thinking it was makes you feel better.