FIJI fraternity faces charges of assault

Both civiland criminal suitsBoth civiland criminal suitshave been filed The Phi Gamma Delta fraternity is facing both criminal and civil charges following an assault at its Locust Walk house during a party on Saturday night, according to Robert Rogers, the victim of the assault. Rogers is not a University student. The incident was also reported to the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, which will determine whether to take disciplinary action against the fraternity, according to University Police Captain John Richardson. Rogers said he was preparing to leave the party with a friend when he was confronted by a group of fraternity brothers and other students. "They surrounded me and asked me if I had a problem," he said. "When I said 'no', one of them hit me in the back of the head with a full beer can. As soon as the first can hit me, the rest of the group jumped in." Rogers added that as a result of the attack, he suffered a severely swollen jaw, multiple bruises and a blood coagulation on the back of his head where he was hit by the can. "It was very scary," he added. "It happened for no reason at all. I didn't even know the guys." Rogers said he was able to make his way across Locust Walk to Steinberg-Dietrich Hall, where he notified University Police of the attack. According to University Police reports, partygoers refused to allow the responding officers to enter the house. Rogers added that "they didn't want to let them in because they were serving alcohol to everyone without asking for identification." But FIJI brother and Wharton sophomore Mike Van Loon denied that this was the case. "That's a lie," he said. "We always ID at the door." Rogers said that when the officers finally escorted him back into the house, he was able to identify four of his attackers. "I was told that there was a second reason that they had kept the door closed," he said. "They wanted to give the other guys a chance to escape." As the officers left the house with Rogers, partially full beer cans were thrown at them from the top floors of the house, leading the officers' to break up the party, according to Richardson. Van Loon said that when the party was broken up at around 1:30 a.m., "it was still packed. There was a line of people waiting to get in." But Richardson said that "enough was enough." "Someone could have been seriously hurt by those cans," he explained. "When things get that disorderly, its time to shut the party down."