PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Video of Frat Confrontation
by Brad Cue Monday, Mar. 17, 2003 at 9:43 PM

Video of Fraternity Confrontation on CMU's campus March 16 2003.

fratweb.jpg, image/jpeg, 640x480

Video of Fraternity Confrontation on CMU's campus March 16 2003.

I was the first person from the march to notice the fraternity boys had made signs and were chanting. I immediately ran up to simply document what was on their signs, but things started to get ugly. It looked like one frat brother in a white tank top was going to strike a protestor on a bicycle, but he quickly backed off when the camera was pointed his direction. Then I noticed a rather animated frat brother screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs. Naturally, I ran over to capture what he was saying. He then approached me in quite the menacing manner. I was sure he was going to hit me. At this point, some of the peace march participants had come up behind me, and luckily there was no physical confrontation. The video cuts off just as I mutter "Don't touch me" as he's really close and coming towards me. I honestly wasn't expecting to be getting video that long into the day. After my camera shut off, I was still in the front line of people at the fraternity lawn. I was approached by a few frat brothers in an aggressive manner, but was not struck. I did however notice that there was at least one of them with a baseball bat. No, they weren't looking for a fight or anything... Not those kind fraternity brothers. There was a verbal exchange between a fraternity brother and myself however;

F: "Get off our lawn! This is private property"
B: -silence-
F: "Step back off the lawn!"
B: -silence, I stepped forward-
F: -stepped forward, within an inch of my face, screaming at me about the lawn-
B: "Don't hit me. I will file assault charges, and theres lots of cops around."
F: "I'm not going to hit you!
B: "I'm not going to move."

Maybe not the wisest situation to find myself in, but I knew who was immediately behind me. I also knew that if anything were to happen I had plenty of cameras around me along with a few hundred of my closest friends by my side. Stepping back from him could have made him more aggressive in my mind as he would have noticed a sort of weakness or compliance in me. Through experience I've found that most bullies don't escalate their actions if you don't show a weakness.

The fraternities out there want us to believe that they are not a bunch of angry, confrontational, potentially violent (Remember: baseball bat. None of us carry weapons.) males? This is the response I would expect to come from a fraternity, and now its on video for all to see. If they really wanted to change their image, scenes like this wouldn't be possible. Not all frat brothers are bad people, but neither are all gang members, but that doesn't mean you really want to associate with their organization does it?

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Fraternity Confrontation
by Brad Cue Monday, Mar. 17, 2003 at 9:43 PM

QuickTime movie at 3.5 mebibytes

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