Police Have Video Of Deadly Penn State Frat Pledge Party

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Police have video from a Penn State fraternity pledge party where a pledge from New Jersey was fatally injured in a fall down stairs.

The Beta Theta Pi house had an extensive surveillance system.

Penn State's vice president for student affairs tells Philly.com (http://bit.ly/2oUe4QL ) this was "a hazing ritual and it involved the gross misuse of alcohol."

Police have said 19-year-old Timothy Piazza, of Lebanon, New Jersey, was among about a dozen pledges at a Feb. 2 pledge acceptance ceremony when the fall occurred. Help wasn't summoned until the next day, and Piazza died at a hospital Feb. 4.

Jim and Evelyn Piazza said authorities told them the video showed their son at one point getting off a couch where he had been placed after falling.

The fraternity, which has been shut down, says in legal papers that it provided the video without a warrant, and with an understanding that, after it was copied, it would be returned.

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Information from: Philly.com, http://www.philly.com/