WCU students charged in off-campus fight
A pair of Western Carolina University fraternity brothers are facing assault charges after student Zach Denson left an off-campus party this spring with a broken nose, concussion and spinal injury.
Blake Roberts and Walter Pierce Conger, both members of the suspended fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha, are charged with assault inflicting serious injury after “hitting [Zachary Denson] in the face with his fist and kicking him repeatedly when Zachary Denson was on the ground.”
The fight reportedly happened April 18 after Denson arrived at a party at Tree House Apartments.
According to his father Robert, Zach, 19, showed up a little after 11 p.m. when he got a text from a friend needing a ride home from the party. Up until 10:35 p.m., Robert said, Zach was in the photography lab working on an end-of-the-semester project. Others saw him there, and he posted a photo of his work on Facebook.
Zach went to the party, found his friend, and headed for the door, Robert said.
“Somebody bumped him. He bumped Conger and Conger spilled his beer,” Robert said. “Zach turned around to apologize and got cold-clocked.”
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Then, Robert said, Zach found himself at the bottom of a pile of four guys, including Conger and Roberts, who punched him in the face for 30 or 45 seconds, until two other students managed to extricate Zach from the situation.
Fran Carrelli, a senior PKA member who attended the party, gave a different account. Zach was “highly intoxicated” when he showed up, and after the guy holding the beer — who Carrelli said was not Conger — knocked Zach down, the other guys went to help him up. Zach came up swinging, Carrelli said.
Not a word of that is true, Robert said.
“It is their cover story,” he said. “It’s proven to be false, and it’s hilarious.”
According to Robert, who has spoken with multiple students present at the party, Conger left the party unscathed but later that weekend sported a busted lip. Robert believes he had a frat brother give it to him as a cover-up.
Zach, meanwhile, couldn’t even finish the semester while recovering from a broken nose, severe facial bruising, a concussion and spinal injury. He still suffers from dizziness and nausea, and while he was lying in bed recovering, all the summer jobs got snapped up.
“He doesn’t have a job right now,” Robert said. “He’s still feeling like crap. It’s taken a psychological toll on him as well.”
Zach is not planning to return to WCU in the fall, Robert said.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Department is still investigating the incident, and WCU is making some inquiries of its own, though Robert said he’s found the university’s communication and response to the situation subpar.
“University officials are investigating any potential violations of the Code of Student Conduct, and that university-level investigation is still ongoing,” said WCU spokesman Bill Studenc.
Long-standing issues
The party where the incident occurred was not a fraternity party, but the fact that two PKA members are charged has raised some eyebrows.
The WCU chapter of PKA was handed a five-year suspension this spring in response to a February incident when a pledge claimed he had been threatened and water-boarded by fraternity members. According to the police report from that incident, one of the fraternity brothers had put a water hose from the sink in the pledge’s mouth and told him to recite the fraternity’s preamble while the water was running, holding his face to keep him from turning away.
Interestingly enough, the suspension came in the week following the April 18 party. According to Robert, the assault, and not the hazing, is the real reason for the suspension.
“I was on the phone with the national fraternity in April, Monday morning after this event,” he said. “Magically, that same calendar day a cease and desist order was issued to the chapter.”
It wasn’t the first time that PKA had gotten a university suspension. The same thing happened in April 2010, when the chapter was found guilty of violating social event policies, recruitment policies, GPA requirements and a probation sanction. The chapter didn’t get its status back until fall 2014, less than four semesters before losing it again.
Without university recognition, fraternities and sororities can’t participate in university activities, use resources such as meeting rooms, or receive funding from the Student Government Association. But as long as they keep their charter from the national organization, they can continue to operate as an off-campus organization.
Robert, who was chapter president of his fraternity while in college, isn’t patently against fraternities. They serve a purpose, he said, and can serve as a vehicle to form life-long friendships. And if it weren’t for the history of complaints against the WCU chapter of PKA, he probably wouldn’t blame the fraternity itself for Zach’s trauma in April.
But the history is there, and he does blame the fraternity.
“There’s a problem with this fraternity, this chapter,” he said. “It’s an out-of-control, unsupervised group of idiots. They finally stepped over the line.”
Robert won’t be satisfied until all four of the people who beat his son are served arrest warrants.
Carrelli disagrees that the fraternity is to blame.
“I don’t think it should affect the whole fraternity by any means,” he said. “It wasn’t the whole fraternity that did it. It was the actions of a few bad apples that did it.”
But the national organization is apparently considering the question.
On May 20, the national organization placed PKA on suspension, prohibiting the chapter from recruiting or meeting for any purpose besides responding to requests from the university or national organization. When the Supreme Council of the Fraternity next meets, it will discuss the future of the chapter. A decision will likely come out the first week of July, said Brent Phillips, PKA’s senior marketing officer.
Though the suspension occurred after the altercation between Conger and Denson, it’s a result of the earlier hazing incident, Phillips said.
“However,” he added, “our Supreme Council will consider all actions and allegations when they render their decision.”
Robert knows which decision he’s rooting for.
“There’s a higher calling besides protecting criminals and people who have committed assault,” he said.
