Four plead guilty in 2013 hazing death
STROUDSBURG, Pa. — Four men facing the most serious charges in a fraternity hazing ritual that resulted in the 2013 death of a New York City college student pleaded guilty Monday to voluntary manslaughter.
Fraternity members at Pi Delta Psi admitted they physically abused Chun “Michael” Deng, a Baruch College student, then tried to cover it up as the 19-year-old lay dying in their rented house in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains.
Police have said fraternity members blindfolded Deng, forced him to wear a heavy backpack and then repeatedly tackled him during the hazing ritual.
The four defendants, Kenny Kwan, Charles Lai, Raymond Lam and Sheldon Wong, had been charged with third-degree murder but pleaded guilty to felony manslaughter and hindering apprehension charges. They face 22 to 36 months in prison when they are sentenced in December.
The case has been cited as an example of a growing insistence by prosecutors across the country to take a harder line in pursuing criminal charges after college students are killed while being hazed. This month, 18 students at Penn State University were charged, including several facing counts of involuntary manslaughter, in the February death of a sophomore.
Two die in jet crash
CARLSTADT, N.J. — Two crew members died Monday when their jet struck a building and crashed while trying to land at a small airport near New York City, sparking a fire that sent thick, black smoke into the air, authorities said.
Police said no passengers were aboard the Learjet 35 when it went down about 3:30 p.m. a quarter-mile from the runway at Teterboro Airport in a densely populated residential and industrial area. No one on the ground was reported to have been injured.
Carlstadt Mayor Craig Lahullier said all town employees had left for the day before the plane crashed next to its Department of Public Works building.
The airport was closed after the crash. Departing flights resumed in the evening, but no arriving flights were allowed.
Arrest ends in death
A man in Las Vegas has died after police officers punched him, shocked him with a stun gun and used a controversial neck restraint to subdue him during an arrest outside a luxury hotel and casino on the Strip.
Las Vegas police said they’re investigating the incident. The department has not identified the man who died or the officers involved.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada blasted the police response, saying “chokehold practices must stop.”
Students’ bus overturns
HAVREDE GRACE, Md. — A bus carrying Pennsylvania eighth-graders to Washington, D.C., for a field trip overturned Monday on Interstate 95 in Maryland, state police said. One child and one teacher were seriously injured and others were taken to hospitals, police said.
The bus was carrying 26 children from Charles W. Henry School in Philadelphia, three chaperones and the driver overturned at least once on the highway near Havre de Grace, Greg Shipley, a Maryland State Police spokesman, said.
Police said a car that tried to pass the bus clipped it, causing it to overturn.
Also in the nation
The Marine Corps is running a new television commercial that for the first time focuses on a woman in a combat job.