Southeast
Drum major’s hazing left heartbroken mother wondering what really happened: 'He was beaten to death'
Robert Champion’s mother, Pam Champion, stared at her phone after hearing the heartbreaking news that left her breathless. Her son had collapsed and died.
“My son had a physical, and he was healthy,” Pam recalled to Fox News Digital. “I was trying to figure out what could have made my child just die so suddenly. I spent the whole day trying to figure that out, only to find out that it was all a lie. He didn’t just collapse and die. What happened was the unthinkable.”
Champion, a Florida A&M drum major, was killed in November 2011. He was 26. His case is featured in Investigation Discovery’s (ID) true-crime series, “Murder Under the Friday Night Lights.” It examines homicides involving high school and college football teams.
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Pam said it wasn’t until the next day that she heard her son’s name on the local news. The broadcast showed a photo of him she didn’t recognize. She soon learned her son had bruises on his chest, arms, shoulders and back when he died. Witnesses told emergency dispatchers Champion was vomiting before he was found unresponsive.
“My son didn’t just collapse and die. He was beaten to death,” said Pam. “He was murdered. And I needed to know what happened.”
Champion, who was part of the famed Florida A&M University (FAMU) Marching 100, was described as an inquisitive child who always had a passion for music. He fell in love with the marching bands of Georgia, where he was born, and dreamed of becoming a drum major.
“He identified drum majors as gentlemen with their capes, long tail jackets and high hats,” said Pam. “He wanted to be one of them. Robert had a tender heart for people. He never met an enemy. He trained to play the clarinet, played the drums at our local church and taught himself to play the keyboard. Music was his love. And he wanted to share that love with others. He found joy in performing in front of a large audience and dancing.
“He was large in stature but very gentle. He even volunteered to be an organ donor because he wanted to help save a life. And that’s how he felt about people.”
As Champion thrived at FAMU, Pam vividly recalled one conversation she had with her son.
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“Rob was talking about how people were trying to get him to do something,” Pam explained. “He never identified what that was, but he didn’t want to do it. My comment to him at the time was, ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You’re in control.’ But in terms of him using the term ‘hazing,’ that never occurred.”
Champion appeared “tired” the last time his mother saw him.
“He didn’t seem the same,” Pam recalled. “He was backing out of the driveway. I said, ‘Rob, the only thing I want for you is to be happy.’ And he said, ‘Oh mom, you know me.’ It wasn’t unusual for him to stay in his room playing his instruments, but it was just something about his demeanor. But he never disclosed anything that went on within the marching band.”
According to the Orange County Medical Examiner, Champion died of “hemorrhagic shock due to soft tissue hemorrhage, due to blunt force trauma.” The episode revealed that, just hours before his death, Champion had marched with his band during a football game between Florida A&M and Bethune-Cookman University.
Pam claimed she had to call the school numerous times to get any details about what happened to her son that night.
“It took six months for the Orange County prosecutor at the time to contact us at all,” said Pam. “We heard nothing from them. Everything we got came from the media.”
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According to Pam, a reporter stopped by her house with “stacks of complaints that rose high,” revealing a horrifying culture of hazing within the band.
“This was no secret to the school, the violence that went on,” Pam alleged. “And the hard thing for me was, you had staff within the band that was supposed to be educating the students about hazing. There’s corruption and negligence. … And for the school to take a stance and say publicly that they were not responsible for my son’s death – how low can you go? Was my son Robert responsible for his own death?”
Interviews with defendants and other band members revealed Champion endured a brutal ritual known as “crossing over.” The university maintained that Champion, who witnessed others being hazed, consented to the ritual to gain respect among fellow band members.
With chances for initiation ending with the football season, fellow band members said Champion agreed to run through a gauntlet of people kicking and beating him with drumsticks, mallets and fists. The hazing took place aboard “Bus C,” which was described as the band’s notorious venue for hazing after its performances during FAMU football games.
What awaited Champion was a punishing ordeal in which about 15 people pushed, struck, kicked and grabbed at participants as they tried to wade down the aisle from the bus’s driver’s seat to touch the back wall, according to interviews. One witness said bigger band members waited at the back to make the final few steps the most difficult. Several others who went through it said the ordeal leaves participants dizzy and breathless at a minimum.
After finishing the gauntlet, Champion vomited and complained of trouble breathing. He quickly fell unconscious and couldn’t be revived. An autopsy concluded Champion died from shock caused by severe bleeding.
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Champion’s death illustrated how ingrained hazing was in the band, although previous hazing incidents were well documented at the school in lawsuits and arrests. Two band members previously received serious kidney injuries during hazing beatings, and another member suffered a broken thighbone just weeks before Champion’s death.
Still, going aboard “Bus C” was voluntary, defendant Caleb Jackson told detectives. Pam said she and her family had a hard time believing Champion, who was outspoken about hazing, would agree to such brutality. They noted that “no one signs up for murder.”
Even though band members are required to sign a pledge promising not to participate in hazing, initiations were planned that night for Champion and two other band members. Along with “crossing over,” the bus was also known for “the hot seat,” which involved getting kicked and beaten with drumsticks and bass drum mallets while covered with a blanket.
Fifteen former band members were charged in Champion’s death. Purported ringleader Dante Martin was sentenced to 6½ years in prison in 2015. Jessie Baskin served just shy of a year in county jail after entering a no-contest plea to manslaughter. Most of the others were sentenced to community service and probation.
Jackson, 26, pleaded no contest to manslaughter and hazing in 2013. He was sentenced in 2015 to four years in prison. Jackson’s sentencing ended all prosecution in the case.
Longtime band director Julian White resigned in 2012 and contributed to the resignation of university President James Ammons.
That same year, a report from the Florida Board of Governors inspector general’s office concluded the university lacked internal controls to prevent or detect hazing. It cited a lack of communication among top university officials, the police department and the office responsible for disciplining students.
A spokesperson for FAMU didn’t immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment about Pam speaking out in the series.
Today, Pam is co-founder of Be A Champion, a foundation that aims to raise awareness of the violence of hazing and other forms of bullying.
“We have to make it public that this isn’t acceptable,” said Pam. “We have to follow through with tough laws. … Every year, a young student loses their lives to this nice fluffy word called hazing. That has to stop. … And students have the power to end this. They just don’t know they have that power. They have the power to refuse. We need to combat this infectious disease we call hazing, one that is well covered, treatable and preventable.
“Robert was known to speak out against violence,” Pam reflected. “He wanted to help others. I’m here to do that for him.”
ID’s “Murder Under the Friday Night Lights” is available for streaming on Max. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Southeast
Trans middle school athlete whose presence stirred protests is accused of sexual harassment
West Virginia high school track athlete Adaleia Cross is joining a national Title IX lawsuit after alleging a transgender 13-year-old teammate sexually harassed her during practices and in the school’s locker room.
B.P.J., which is how court documents refer to the transgender athlete at the center of the allegations and another West Virginia lawsuit, allegedly made “several offensive and inappropriate sexual comments” to Cross throughout the school shot put season. The interactions allegedly escalated to more “aggressive, vile, and disturbing” comments during Cross’s final year of middle school. B.P.J is a biological male who identifies as a female.
“During the end of that year, about two to three times per week, B.P.J. would look at me” and make a sexually explicit vulgar comment, Cross alleged in the lawsuit filed May 8. “There were usually other girls around who heard this. I heard B.P.J. say the same thing to my other teammates, too.”
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Cross alleged additional “vulgar comments” caused deep distress and affected her ability to continue to participate in track and field.
“B.P.J. made other more explicit sexual statements that felt threatening to me. At times, B.P.J.” would make remarks suggesting a desire to carry out sexual assault, according to the lawsuit.
“I felt confused and disgusted when I heard these vulgar and aggressive comments,” Cross alleged. “It was especially confusing because I was told that B.P.J. was on the girls’ team because B.P.J. identifies as a girl, but the girls on the team never talked like that.”
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Cross then alleged she would report the comments to her school’s administrators, but “B.P.J. got very little or no punishment for saying things that no other student would get away with.”
Even though Cross, who is 15 years old, started high school last fall, she still interacts with B.P.J. because the middle and high school share the same track and overlapping practice times. This fall, B.P.J. will enter high school, and Cross said she “dreads being on the same sports team again.”
“I am reluctant to keep competing on a team that exposes me to these inappropriate comments. I’m also reluctant to continue in track and field if I have to compete against boys. I’m unable to fully enjoy sports in this environment,” Cross said.
Cross noted that B.P.J.’s athletic performance steadily advanced throughout middle school. In 2023, B.P.J. outperformed Cross and secured a spot in the Mid Mountain 10 Middle School Championships, a track meet in which only the top three athletes from each team can compete. B.P.J. qualified for the meet, knocking Cross out of one of the top three positions.
“If I complained, I would be unfairly labeled as ‘transphobic,’ even though that is not true. It felt unfair. I felt like I had to suck it up and live with it. I felt unheard and unseen,” Cross said in the lawsuit.
B.P.J. is now connected to the legal proceedings of State of Tennessee v. Cardona, filed in the Northern District of Kentucky. West Virginia was part of the original group of six states filing as plaintiffs in the case against Biden’s Title IX revisions.
In April, new regulations for Title IX were ushered in by President Biden’s Department of Education that would protect gender identity from discrimination, while rolling back Trump-era rules that bolstered the rights of those accused of sexual misconduct.
Heritage Foundation legal fellow Sarah Marshall Perry told Fox News Digital in an interview Cross’s lawsuit expands the number of individuals, organizations and states challenging Title IX.
“We know it hasn’t even been published officially in the Federal Register, and yet it’s already raised the ire of more than 17 school districts, one school board, seven organizations, two individual plaintiffs and 26 states, and is some of the most significant federal litigation in terms of depth and swiftness of filing that I have ever seen in my two and a half decades of legal practice,” Perry said.
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“It is not only unconstitutional, it’s a violation of administrative law and the Civil Rights law that we are seeing claims based on everything from a violation of the First Amendment to sexual harassment, as is Cross’s claim, to violation of religious liberty to violation of the Administrative Procedure Act,” Perry continued.
“So, it is an encouraging development, and I don’t believe it will be the last two that we see here in the middle of May.”
Earlier this month, five West Virginia middle school girls were banned from participating in track and field meets after they protested against B.P.J. and the court’s refusal to enforce the state’s “Save Women’s Sports Act.” But they were given the ability to compete again after Judge Thomas A. Bedell issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the Harrison Board of Education and its schools from penalizing student-athletes for their speech.
The school board denied allegations of retaliation against the students and instead asserted the students were allowed to protest without hindrance and with full awareness and permission from coaches and the principal.
Fox News Digital’s Julia Johnson contributed to this report.
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Southeast
Potential Trump running mate rips Biden's outreach to Black voters: 'Always pandering'
EXCLUSIVE: As President Biden prepares for a weekend of Black voter outreach in the key battleground states of Georgia and Michigan, a high-profile Black Republican politician is accusing the president of election year “pandering.”
“It’s always pandering,” Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida argued in a national digital exclusive interview with Fox News. “This is what the Democrats do, especially in election years. You never see them in the Black community until it’s time to actually get votes, and they show up and want to give speeches.”
The president is scheduled to take part in an event Saturday in Georgia that his re-election campaign highlighted was “focused on engaging Black voters” before delivering the commencement address Sunday morning – in his official capacity as president – at Morehouse College, a renowned historically Black men’s liberal arts college in Atlanta.
Biden later Sunday will meet with small-business owners in Detroit before delivering an address that evening in Michigan to the NAACP.
The president’s re-election team, in an email release, highlighted that “no administration has delivered for Black America like President Biden and Vice-President Harris.”
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“This campaign will not take a single voter for granted,” Biden campaign senior adviser Trey Baker wrote in the memo. “We are not, and will not, parachute into these communities at the last minute, expecting their vote.”
But a slew of polls this spring – both nationally and in the key swing states – have indicated that Trump has gained support with Black voters at Biden’s expense.
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The Biden campaign memo spotlighted that “while the Black unemployment rate skyrocketed under Trump, the Biden-Harris administration helped to create over 2.5 million jobs for Black workers, resulting in record low Black unemployment – Black business ownership is also growing at the fastest pace in 30 years.”
But Donalds, in his interview with Fox News Digital, pointed to persistent inflation.
“I think his problem with Black voters in particular, but with all voters, is that his agenda sucks. It’s awful. Inflation is crippling so many families. It’s destroyed purchasing power,” Donalds emphasized.
Donald also pointed to what he called the nation’s “wide open border, which is strangling every major city in America, squeezing their budgets, overwhelming resources.”
And he claimed that Biden is “trying to find ways to repair the damage. But speeches don’t repair damage. Actual policy and execution is what fixes things.”
Donalds was interviewed ahead of his trip to New Hampshire on Friday to headline the state GOP’s major fundraising dinner.
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Former two-term South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who later served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, in January captured 40% of the vote in New Hampshire’s presidential primary. Haley, who was the last candidate standing against Trump in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, ended her campaign in early March.
But more than two months after she dropped out, zombie candidate Haley is still grabbing sizable support in the GOP primaries at the expense of Trump.
Donalds said his message to New Hampshire Republicans is “it’s time to come together. It’s time to be focused on being one party… I think every Republican in our country, regardless of what side of the party they’re on, does understand that Joe Biden is the master of disaster and has to be defeated if our country’s going to survive.”
“I’m fully confident that by the time we get to the November election, those voters are going to come home and vote Republican. They’re going to vote for Donald Trump,” Donalds predicted.
Donalds, a Trump ally and supporter in the House, is considered to be on the former president’s short list for 2024 running mate.
The two-term congressman has long said he would serve as running mate if asked by Trump.
But because both Donalds and Trump call Florida home, residency could be an issue.
A general interpretation of a clause in Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution is that if the presidential and vice presidential nominee come from the same state, the electors from that state cannot vote for both candidates. With 30 electoral votes at stake in Florida, this could be an issue.
Asked what would happen if he was named as the GOP’s vice presidential nominee, Donalds said “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. It’s something we definitely have to think through. When you get there, you get there, and you make those decisions accordingly. There’s probably ways to work that out.”
Donalds was interviewed a few days after Trump, at a closed-door fundraiser in New York City, suggested that if Donalds ran for Florida governor in 2026 in the race to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, he’d have “many friends in the race.”
Donalds told Fox News “I’ve thought about it. I don’t really rule anything out simply,”
“It’s really cool that people back home in Florida consider me to be able to be the state’s next governor. It’s really an honor. It’s honestly surreal thinking about it because I’m 45 and my journey through politics has been a really fruitful one,” Donalds said. “It’s really humbling and an honor, but I just focus on doing the job I have.”
Donalds’ trip to New Hampshire – which holds the first presidential primary in the race for the GOP nomination – is also sparking some speculation that he may have some national ambitions in four years.
“I think it’s pretty cool. You never know. Politics is a funny business. Things can change very, very fast,” he said when asked about a possible White House run in 2028. “People have asked me about the future all the time. So why not go to New Hampshire, especially if they ask you to come. You better show up.”
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
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Southeast
Hundreds pack funeral for Roger Fortson, the airman killed in his home by a Florida deputy
Hundreds of Air Force members in dress blues joined Roger Fortson’s family, friends and others at a suburban Atlanta megachurch on Friday to pay their final respects to the Black senior airman, who was shot and killed in his Florida home earlier this month by a sheriff’s deputy.
People lined up well before the start of the service at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest to file past the open coffin and say their goodbyes to Fortson, who was shot six times by a deputy responding to a May 3 call about a possible domestic violence situation at Fortson’s apartment complex in the Florida Panhandle. He was 23.
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Fortson’s face and upper body were visible in his Air Force uniform, with an American flag draped over the lower half of the coffin. After viewing the body, many mourners paused to hug one another.
“As you can see from the sea of Air Force blue, I am not alone in my admiration of Senior Airman Fortson,” Col. Patrick Dierig told mourners, referring to the rows of airmen who took up nearly an entire section of the sprawling church.
“We would like to take credit for making him great, but the truth is that he was great before he came to us,” said Dierig, who commands the 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Air Force Base in Florida, where Fortson was stationed.
The Rev. Jamal Bryant opened his eulogy with a story about how civil rights icon Medgar Evers joined the Army during World War II even though he and other Black American service members were fighting for freedoms abroad that they didn’t enjoy at home.
The 1963 killing of Evers, a Mississippi NAACP leader who was gunned down by a white supremacist, “showed all of America that you can wear a uniform and the uniform won’t protect you, that regrettably sometimes the skin you wear is more of a magnet to opposition than the uniform that you bear,” Bryant said. “Because in America, before people see you as a veteran, as an airman in the United States Air Force, they’ll see you as a Black man.”
Bryant also called for justice in Fortson’s killing.
“We’ve got to call it what it is: It was murder,” Bryant said. “He died of stone cold murder. And somebody has got to be held accountable. Roger was better to America than America was to Roger.”
The Fortson family’s lawyer, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, delivered a rousing address, telling the gathering: “We will remember him for the American patriot he was.”
“He was the best from East Atlanta. … He was the best from the state of Georgia. He was the best from America. He was one of the best this world had to offer,” Crump said.
In a recorded video played at the service, the Rev. Al Sharpton also highlighted Fortson’s military service and called for his death to not go unpunished.
“He as a young Black man stood up, signed up to fight for this country. The question now is will the country stand up and fight for him? … That is the question and that is what we intend to get an answer to,” Sharpton said.
After the service, airmen saluted and Fortson’s mother embraced mourners outside the church as his casket was carried to a horse-drawn carriage and led away.
On Thursday, Fortson’s mother vowed to get justice for her son, who had served in overseas combat zones. At a news conference held by the family and Crump, Meka Fortson spoke glowingly about how her son had always stayed on a positive path and had never been in trouble or shown signs of violence.
She also had a message for Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden: “You’re going to give me justice whether you want to, Sheriff Aden, or not,” she said.
On the day he was killed, Fortson opened the door while holding a handgun pointed toward the floor, according to the deputy’s body camera footage. The deputy shouted, “Step back!” and then shot Fortson six times. Only afterward did he shout, “Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” The deputy then called paramedics on his radio.
Fortson’s family and Crump argue that the shooting was completely unjustified and that the deputy had gone to the wrong apartment while responding to a call about a possible domestic disturbance in progress at the apartment complex. Fortson was home alone and talking to his girlfriend on FaceTime when he grabbed his gun because he heard someone outside his unit, Crump has said.
The deputy, whose name has not been released, shot Fortson within moments of the airman responding to the deputy’s knocking and opening his door. Sheriff’s officials say the deputy acted in self-defense.
Two weeks after the shooting, the sheriff has yet to release an incident report, any 911 records or the officer’s identity, despite requests for the information under Florida’s open records act.
The case is among many around the country in which Black people have been shot in their homes by law enforcement personnel.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating and the deputy has been placed on administrative leave.
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