Caleb Wilson Hazing Prevention Task Force meeting held among Louisiana college systems
BATON ROUGE - The "Caleb Wilson Hazing Prevention Task Force", consisting of Louisiana university systems, met at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center on Tuesday to reflect on Wilson's death and discuss best practices for hazing prevention moving forward.
Wilson's parents were in attendance for the meeting, which ranged in topics from trends in hazing, to how to prevent it in the future and legal measures taken to properly punish those who instigate hazing behavior.
The meeting began with reflections from Dr. Walter Kimbrough, former president of Dillard University in New Orleans; a speaker referred to him as an "expert regarding hazing" in high education.
Kimbrough discussed whether people arrested for hazing tend to be in the group of people who already graduated and came back to campus, noting that arrestees had a trend of people in their mid-20s, late-20s and early-30s.
"We can deal with the group that's on campus and work with those students, but what do you do with the people who are on the fringes?", Kimbrough asked.
Kimbrough also noted that, though he didn't have exact numbers, severe injuries seemed to result more from hazing incidents that involved people in that age range. Notably, the three people arrested for Wilson's death were fraternity members Isaiah Smith, 28, Kyle Thurman, 25, and Caleb McCray, 23.
Attorney Morgan Johnson from District Attorney Hillar Moore's office also spoke about understanding the legal consequences of hazing and her previous experience prosecuting the Max Gruver case. She said because of the Max Gruver Act, which created the charge of "criminal hazing," prosecutors will have "a lot more options."
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"What's going to be interesting with Caleb's case is we're going to be able to see [Max Gruver's] law in effect for the first time," Johnson said.