Education
Texas Longhorns Fire Basketball Coach After Domestic Assault Charge
Chris Beard was fired on Thursday as the pinnacle coach of the College of Texas males’s basketball staff, weeks after he was arrested on a felony home violence cost in Austin.
Chris Del Conte, the college’s vice chairman and athletic director, mentioned in an announcement on Thursday that the college had determined to terminate Beard’s contract efficient instantly.
Beard, 49, was suspended with out pay on Dec. 12 after he was arrested and charged with assault on a member of a household or family by impeding breath circulation, a third-degree felony, based on the Travis County Sheriff’s Workplace. Beard posted a money bond of $10,000 and was launched from jail the day of his arrest.
Rodney Terry, the staff’s affiliate head coach, has been serving as performing head coach of the Texas Longhorns males’s basketball staff since Beard was suspended. Del Conte mentioned that Terry would end the season because the staff’s performing head coach.
“This has been a troublesome scenario that we’ve been diligently working by way of,” Del Conte mentioned.
The Austin Police Division mentioned officers responded to a name a few disturbance at a house in Austin at round 12:15 a.m. on Dec. 12. The caller informed the police that the disturbance had ended and that one particular person on the house had left, the police mentioned in an announcement. When the police arrived on the home, a girl informed them that Beard had assaulted and choked her.
Perry Minton, a lawyer for Beard, mentioned in an announcement on Thursday that Beard was “crushed on the information he is not going to be teaching on the College of Texas.”
“On the outset of Coach Beard’s suspension, the college promised they’d conduct an unbiased investigation surrounding the allegations and decide concerning his employment solely after that they had performed so,” Minton mentioned. “They proceeded to terminate Coach Beard with out asking a single query of him or his fiancée.”
The college declined to touch upon its investigation.
Just a few days after Beard was arrested, Randi Trew, Beard’s fiancée, mentioned in an announcement that her lawyer shared with The Related Press that the 2 had engaged in a “bodily battle” after she broke his glasses in “frustration.” Beard, she added, “didn’t strangle me.”
“Chris has acknowledged that he was performing in self-defense, and I don’t refute that,” she mentioned. “I don’t imagine Chris was making an attempt to deliberately hurt me in any manner. It was by no means my intent to have him arrested or prosecuted.” A college spokesman confirmed that Beard had been provided the chance to resign or have his contracted terminated by the college. Minton, Beard’s lawyer, informed James Davis, the college’s vice chairman of authorized affairs, in a letter on Thursday that the supply “got here as a shock.”
“With this, I need to be on report as emphatically stating, and herein memorializing, that Coach Beard has not performed something to violate any provision of his contract with the College of Texas,” Minton mentioned within the letter. “He was arrested, then his fiancée retracted her beforehand reported assertion.”
The Texas Longhorns named Beard head coach in April 2021 after he spent 5 seasons as the pinnacle coach of the boys’s basketball staff at Texas Tech College, which he led to the N.C.A.A. nationwide championship recreation in 2019.
Earlier than teaching the Longhorns, Beard was the pinnacle coach of the boys’s basketball groups on the College of Arkansas at Little Rock; Angelo State College in San Angelo, Texas; McMurry College in Abilene, Texas; Seminole State School in Seminole, Okla.; and Fort Scott Neighborhood School in Fort Scott, Kan. Beard graduated from the College of Texas in 1995 with a bachelor’s diploma in kinesiology, the examine of human movement.
Education
Four Fraternity Members Charged After a Pledge Is Set on Fire
Four fraternity members at San Diego State University are facing felony charges after a pledge was set on fire during a skit at a party last year, leaving him hospitalized for weeks with third-degree burns, prosecutors said Monday.
The fire happened on Feb. 17, 2024, when the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity held a large party at its house, despite being on probation, court documents show. While under probation, the fraternity was required to “demonstrate exemplary compliance with university policies,” according to the college’s guidelines.
Instead, prosecutors said, the fraternity members planned a skit during which a pledge would be set on fire.
After drinking alcohol in the presence of the fraternity president, Caden Cooper, 22, the three younger men — Christopher Serrano, 20, and Lars Larsen, 19, both pledges, and Lucas Cowling, 20 — then performed the skit, prosecutors said.
Mr. Larsen was set on fire and wounded, prosecutors said, forcing him to spend weeks in the hospital for treatment of third-degree burns covering 16 percent of his body, mostly on his legs.
The charges against Mr. Cooper, Mr. Cowling and Mr. Serrano include recklessly causing a fire with great bodily injury; conspiracy to commit an act injurious to the public; and violating the social host ordinance. If convicted of all the charges, they would face a sentence of probation up to seven years, two months in prison.
Mr. Larsen himself was charged. The San Diego County District Attorney’s office said that he, as well as Mr. Cooper and Mr. Cowling, also tried to lie to investigators in the case, deleted evidence on social media, and told other fraternity members to destroy evidence and not speak to anyone about what happened at the party.
All four men have pleaded not guilty.
Lawyers representing Mr. Cooper and Mr. Cowling did not immediately respond to messages requesting comment on Tuesday. Contact information for lawyers for Mr. Serrano and Mr. Larsen was not immediately available.
The four students were released on Monday, but the court ordered them not to participate in any fraternity parties, not to participate in any recruitment events for the fraternity, and to obey all laws, including those related to alcohol consumption.
The university said Tuesday that it would begin its own administrative investigation into the conduct of the students and the fraternity, now that the police investigation was complete.
After it confirmed the details, the dean of students office immediately put the Phi Kappa Psi chapter on interim suspension, which remains in effect, college officials confirmed on Tuesday.
Additional action was taken, but the office said it could not reveal specifics because of student privacy laws.
“The university prioritizes the health and safety of our campus community,” college officials said in a statement, “and has high expectations for how all members of the university community, including students, behave in the interest of individual and community safety and well-being.”
At least half a dozen fraternities at San Diego State University have been put on probation in the last two years, officials said.
Education
Video: Several Killed in Wisconsin School Shooting, Including Juvenile Suspect
new video loaded: Several Killed in Wisconsin School Shooting, Including Juvenile Suspect
transcript
transcript
Several Killed in Wisconsin School Shooting, Including Juvenile Suspect
The police responded to a shooting at a private Christian school in Madison, Wis., on Monday.
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Around 10:57 a.m., our officers were responding to a call of an active shooter at the Abundant Life Christian School here in Madison. When officers arrived, they found multiple victims suffering from gunshot wounds. Officers located a juvenile who they believe was responsible for this deceased in the building. I’m feeling a little dismayed now, so close to Christmas. Every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever. These types of trauma don’t just go away.
Recent episodes in Guns & Gun Violence
Education
Video: Biden Apologizes for U.S. Mistreatment of Native American Children
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transcript
transcript
Biden Apologizes for U.S. Mistreatment of Native American Children
President Biden offered a formal apology on Friday on behalf of the U.S. government for the abuse of Native American children from the early 1800s to the late 1960s.
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The Federal government has never, never formally apologized for what happened until today. I formally apologize. It’s long, long, long overdue. Quite frankly, there’s no excuse that this apology took 50 years to make. I know no apology can or will make up for what was lost during the darkness of the federal boarding school policy. But today, we’re finally moving forward into the light.
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