Death of Andrew Coffey
fatal hazing incident
Andrew Coffey was killed in November 2017 during a fraternity event, triggering an anti-hazing movement in Florida. On November 3, 2017, Coffey, a Florida State University junior, was killed by acute alcohol poisoning after participating in Big Brother Night, a fraternity event hosted by Pi Kappa Phi. Coffey was found unresponsive on a couch the morning after the event, and his death became part of a national wave of criticism of fraternity hazing practices. Members of the fraternity were eventually prosecuted for their role in Andrew Coffey's death. The majority of Pi Kappa Phi defendants pled guilty to misdemeanor hazing in April 2018. The final two defendants, Luke Kluttz and Anthony Petagine, pled guilty to felony hazing in June 2021 after the Supreme Court of Florida declined to hear their case.
Death
Andrew Coffey, a junior who transferred to FSU to study civil engineering, was a prospective member of Pi Kappa Phi—commonly referred to as a pledge. On November 2, the fraternity was hosting "Big Brother Night" at an off-campus house. Big Brother Night was intended to celebrate pledges becoming mentored by their sponsors, and it was typically a night of heavy drinking for the fraternity. At the time, the fraternity was under a liquor ban, but fraternity members told pledges that the liquor ban was lifted specifically for Big Brother Night.
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This entry incorporates text from “Death of Andrew Coffey” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.