Student stabbed near frat house

I have to say, I’m impressed with how promptly this made it online.

of course, what else is there to report?

Report in depth on how fucking awesome (see: not awesome) frats are. WOW.

Dont judge the frats because some drunk idiot was waving around a knife. People make these choices not the fraternities, and while i will say that the fraternities have to be more responsible about the incidences around their houses, but its because the students were being idiots.

Wishing a speedy recovery to the victim and harsh punishment for the attacker. Fiji, don’t know if you were involved in this or if it was just coincidental that it happened near our around your house but honestly, there’s always something negative being associated with your fraternity. Please clean up your act, you give a bad reputation to the already struggling(and constantly bashed by non-greeks)Fraternities and Sororities at UMaine.

You’re wrong. There’s a pervading attitude that at a frat party, certain kind of things can happen. You know most of the list without me telling you. The ideas continue to get perpetuated and enough people accept it so it continues to happen.

Has anyone been stabbed at UMaine in the past several years? No. It’s not just a coincidence. Don’t alleviate the responsibility of the place.

im not, i realize it happened there and that fraternity has to be responsible, but dont condemn all fraternities because one fraternity was irresponsible. There are fraternities that do good for the campus, look at the fraternities that have responsible parties, or Alpha Delta doing the late night local to make sure people can safely travel to and from parties. Dont give all fraternities shit just because you want someone to blame this on. Take your own advice and blame the fraternity at fault, not all of them.

I agree. My gut reaction was to say frats are awful. It’s the attitudes–which I know are not categorically spread through all fraternities, but I’ll never deny exist massively–and what’s accepted that I’m angry about. If someone wasn’t stabbed, it would have been just another fight, and that would’ve been viewed as normal.

I wanted to clarify what actually happened, the brothers of Phi Gamma Delta were being proactive in protecting their house and not allowing the suspect into their home. The attacker became aggravated and began harassing one of the brothers who wouldn’t allow him to enter. Then another brother stepped in to break up the altercation, the attacker then pulled a knife on him and slashed the brother’s arm. The Greek and UMaine community should come together to support the brothers of FIJI, rather than questioning their motives.

why dont you try joining a fraternity before you bash them. I will agree that a few of the fraternities on campus give us a bad name, and need to be confronted, but there are a lot of fraternities that act honorably and enhance the college. The school would be entirely different if they werent around. That being said, there are some mentalities in certain fraternities that need to be abolished but i think it is immature, and irrational to bash all fraternities because you are pissed off. Im just saying it might be prudent to consider what you are saying before you say it because you will end up offending people in fraternities that havent done anything wrong.

Thank you leslie, with that information it is important to realize that FIJI was doing the right thing, and that previous statements of how Fraternities suck should be reconsidered. You may argue that it wouldnt have happened if they hadnt had a party, but they couldnt possibly predict that, and you can not blame them for the reckless actions of a student who was most likely too drunk to realize what he was doing.

I know there are fraternities that act honorably and serve their intended purpose. But the fact that “a few fraternities give it all a bad name,” “no one could have expected this,” those kind of things will be said over and over in this situation, it’s not okay to me, because it’s empty words. I really hope something is done.

And, obviously, I’m wishing a speedy recovery to the victim and am deeply sorry they were attacked.

I hope something is done as well, because there is no need for this, that is obvious. Im just saying that blaming people that dont deserve to be blamed wont change the fact that it happened, and the only thing we can do now is hope that the attacker is punished severely for his indiscretions, and if he isnt it may be worth petitioning to the authorities, or to the campus to prevent things like this happening in the future.

It is a shame that people like Zach Dionne only see the bad things associated with Fraternities. I have no idea how involved the Phi Gamma Delta brothers were in this unfortunate incident, but the Greek system can not be bashed as a whole for this one event. Some students only choose to see the negative stereotypes that Fraternities and Sororities have but refuse to acknowledge the countless Philanthropy hours that they take part in as well as hosting all kinds of events on campus.

“You’re wrong. There’s a pervading attitude that at a frat party, certain kind of things can happen.”

I’ve never been to a frat party where knifings are accepted as ordinary.

I fail to see how the fraternity is really responsible for this. In fact, they did the right thing by kicking the people who were fighting out of the house. The fact that one of them pulled out a knife has nothing to do with the actions or inactions of the Fiji brothers. Things happen. Fortunately things like this don’t happen very often here. But just because the stabbing took place outside of a fraternity doesn’t mean that that fraternity is responsible. I mean, honestly, what else could they have done? Frisk everyone before they walked in the door? This would be an extreme measure considering that these types of assaults happen extremely rarely at UMaine. What about not having a party at all? Again, this would be a ridiculous charge.

Saying that Fiji needs to be sanctioned for something that was totally beyond their control is an absurd argument. And claiming that they need to be punished for the existence of some sort of subculture of violence within the fraternities is even more wild (I’m not totally sure that anyone here actually made this claim, but I figured I’d say something about it anyways). Sure, something really should be done to address some of the attitudes that are present in SOME of the fraternities, but it makes no sense to punish anyone for it in this instance.

Oh yeah… Fraternities never encourage excessive drinking. Nor does excessive drinking lead to bad choices and fights… ever. Zach must be crazy.

If we all just chilled and listen to a little more jack johnson everything would be cool bro!

Honestly Delta Tau Delta has some good people, and I have friends in it, but you can’t even pretend that the frat house mentality doesn’t have anything to do with this.

I don’t think people in frats are bad people. Far from it. Most people I’ve met are decent. I think the problem is excessive alcohol consumption, something present in college in general, but more so in frats.

Again i dont think you can really blame the frats, granted the social situations fraternities CAN provide encourage people to drink and make bad decisions, but i also know many people not associated with fraternities who have ended up in similar situations. I think it is very difficult to assign blame to more than the individual who committed the crime. He is obviously guilty, beyond that there is no point assigning blame because we can only make assumptions based off of what we think we know happened, when in reality we dont know anything more than they have told us.

If that’s true than everything fraternities say about brotherhood and unity kind of seems like a whole lot of bullshit…

Just to throw my two cents in the mix. Before you all continue the unnecessary bashing on the greeks you need to look a few things. This inncident could have happened anywhere, it just happened at a frat house. The attacker happened to be greek. The same stupid inncident has happened at many house parties not related to Greeks at all. I personally know three different people who were stabbed in the same situation, non of them being Greek, or at a frat party. Also you have to look at where most of the alcohol is being consumed by students. A much smaller percentage then you would think go to Frat Parties, underage drinking is much more prevailent in the dorms and at off campus parties, where there are little to no policies in place to protect people like there are in Fraternity Houses. Think of it this way before you start attacking that point too, what could have happened if he had been let into the house? This inncident could have been much much worse in a crowded area. Also you can not blame a fraternity for the stupidity of one of the members. This brother went against both the values of his fraternity and the values of the Greek system, and because of this is more then likely being removed from his chapter.

just because one fraternity makes bad decisions doesnt mean they all do. Though as said in above posts, while fiji may do stupid stuff, in this situation they did TRY to do the right thing

That’s a fair point.

Wow, I bet this wouldn’t have happened if they were all high on marijuana! Good thing it’s illegal!

The bottom line to this incident is that someone was drunk, a fight broke out causing bodily harm, and a weapon was involved that could have caused serious bodily injury or death. As a former UM alunmi from the 1980′s I am disturbed to see that weapons have gotten into the mix of fighting and drinking. People have been drinking and fighting for quite some time, I do not approve of this behavior, but unfortunatley it does happen. But to see a weapon involved (I cannot remember if this ever happened at UMO)is really disturbing and this type of behavior should not be tolerated by anyone. It is sad to witness “thug” or “gang” type fight behavior going on at his fine University.