A grand jury
says the details of a student who died of acute alcohol poisoning “reveals much about the culture of this fraternity” at Florida State.
During a November fraternity party for pledges and their “big brothers,” FSU student Andrew Coffey drank a bottle of Wild Turkey 101 bourbon, consuming so much that he passed out, his bloodalcohol level nearly seven times the legal limit for driving.
He spent the night unconscious, some of it on a couch while others played pool nearby.
In the morning, a fellow pledge tried to wake Coffey up but couldn’t — and couldn’t find a pulse on the one-time captain of the Pompano Beach High School swim team. That student then spent 11 minutes calling and texting five other students, all members or pledges of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity at Florida State University, before he dialed 911.
The delay in seeking medical help didn’t kill Coffey, 20, who died of acute alcohol poisoning and was pronounced dead at the off-campus Tallahassee house. But it “reveals much about the culture of this fraternity,” wrote a Leon County grand jury in a scathing report released late Tuesday. “The brothers, pledges, and officers were more concerned about getting in trouble than they were about trying to save Coffey’s life.”
The report detailed findings about Coffey’s death based on police, university and medical examiner reports as well as testimony from officials and some students.
It called the alcohol abuse at Pi Kappa Phi “alarming” and said while Coffey wasn’t “physically forced” to drink, his death “occurred with in an environment of hazing,” at a party the fraternity organized “with the express purpose of helping underage pledges get inebriated. And in the process a young life was senseless extinguished.”
It also sharply criticized the many fraternity members — about 80 attended the party along with two hired strippers — who refused to cooperate with police after Coffey’s death. The grand jury was convened as a result, it noted, because it could compel testimony through “subpoena power” and try to work through the “elements of conspiracy and obstructionism surrounding this case.”
Sandy Coffey, the young man’s mother, wrote in a statement attached to the report that her family was “heartbroken” and “troubled” by her son’s death. “Troubled that our died alone in a room full of people … Troubled that a group of young people saw someone in crisis and didn’t act. Troubled that this continues to happen, again and again.”
Coffey, his mother wrote, spent two years at Tallahassee Community College and hoped to join the Navy after graduating from FSU. A memorial service at Pompano
Beach High, where he was a swimmer, football player and ROTC member, drew a crowd of about 500, many of whom remembered him as a young man with the “biggest smile.”
Coffey — 6-feet-tall, 200 pounds and otherwise healthy — was found dead Nov. 3. Three days later, FSU President John Thrasher indefinitely suspended all fraternity and sorority activities at the university, saying they would not be reinstated until students agreed to a “new normal for Greek life.”
Coffey’s death and Thrasher’s decision thrust FSU into the national discussion about college hazing and drinking. The university, with 54 fraternities and sororities on campus, was at least the third in the nation to suspend its Greek system this year.
Coffey’s death also prompted UCF’s Greek system to ban drinking at activities for the first six weeks of the spring semester. Pi Kappa Phi revoked the FSU fraternity’s charter soon after Coffey died, ending all its activities.
The grand jury found evidence of a crime but left a decision about specific charges to the state attorney because the investigation is not complete. State Attorney Jack Campbell told the Tallahassee Democrat that a second grand jury will be convened in January. “There is still outstanding forensic evidence that’s being reviewed, and we will base all charges on the evidence we review,” he told the paper.
The report harshly criticized fraternity members who refused to speak with police, gave rehearsed “self-serving” testimony to the grand jury and “repeatedly made the choice not to speak out, but rather to remain loyal to a culture of secrecy that cannot be allowed to continue.” It noted that only three of 22 pledges, 16 of 38 fraternity members and two of nine fraternity officers cooperated with investigators.
Grand jury members were upset by the “overall glib attitude of Andrew Coffey’s so-called brothers toward this very serious matter,” the report said.
The report also urged FSU to make significant changes to its Greek system, perhaps imposing an honor code that would compel students to truthfully discuss such incidents with investigators.
Thrasher had spoken with all fraternity presidents three weeks before Coffey’s death, warning against “hazing and excessive drinking,” the report noted, but that message “fell on deaf ears.”
He released a statement saying that the ban on Greek activities would continue and that he was frustrated that some students at the house “during the final hours of Andrew’s life” wouldn’t provide needed information to police. “We still have much work to do,” he said.