Anonymous video accuses Sacramento State fraternity of binding, gagging member

A video sent to The Sacramento Bee on Friday shows a purported member of Sacramento State’s Delta Chi fraternity, which is currently under school investigation for an alleged hazing incident, bound to a wood table and gagged with a white cloth.

The Delta Chi member who provided the video to the anonymous sender said the fraternity “kidnapped” the student after he fell asleep, the sender wrote in an email. The sender, who claimed to be a member of another Sacramento State fraternity or sorority, said the video was shot in November 2017. If true, the young man bound to the table would have been initiated as a Delta Chi member about one year prior, according to his social media posts.

Though pledges, or prospective members, are usually the subject of hazing when it occurs, Sacramento State’s 2018-19 student organization handbook says active members can be victims as well.

“Hazing of organization members, new or active, alumni or prospective is against the law,” the student organization handbook reads. “The easiest way to minimize your organization’s risk in regards to hazing claims is to eradicate all hazing from your organization’s activities.”

Delta Chi is currently under investigation for another alleged hazing incident in which four then-pledges were reportedly made to perform a modified “elephant walk,” in which participants walk in a single-file line while holding onto the genitals of the person in front of them. All four participants were clothed and holding objects in front of their crotches in the 3-year-old photo which prompted Sacramento State’s investigation.

This story was originally published February 8, 2019 at 8:02 PM.