Two incidents of gun violence—one reported, one not—occurred at University of Memphis fraternity houses during the weekend.
The identities of the suspects were unknown at the time and it is still unclear whether or not police have any suspects.
The first incident occurred at the Sigma Phi Epsilon house on Friday night.
“The guy with the gun came in with some other people,” an anonymous source who was present at the party said. “Nobody really knew who he was.”
Sig Ep was hosting an “unregistered party,” which is a party that is not registered with the University of Memphis, when this occurred. An unregistered party has no guest list or security.
“It was an unregistered party so it was harder to keep track of who was there,” the source said. “People were just coming over to the house.”
The following day at the Sigma Chi’s “America Party,” which was a registered party, waistbands were being checked for weapons before entrance. This is a routine practice for registered parties.
The same anonymous source said that a similar incident occurred at the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity house on Saturday night.
The police were apparently not called and the party continued, according to the source.
In the Friday incident, an argument took place between the unknown individual and a few Sig Ep fraternity members. When asked to leave the party, the suspect brandished his firearm. It is unclear if the weapon was loaded or not.
“It all happened really fast,” the source said. “When he pulled the gun out, a guy disarmed him with some jiu-jitsu like stuff.”
A fight followed and the whereabouts of the suspect and the gun are unknown at this time. The party cleared and the police were called.
This is when social media got involved. The “Tigers901” Snapchat got a hold of it. There was at least one video of the fight and several pictures suggesting a gun was involved. There was a thread on the popular app “Yik Yak’ about the incident.
No TigerText or email was sent out in connection with the incident. This could be in violation of the Clery Act – a law that requires any federally funded institution like the U of M to quickly keep students informed on acts of crime or emergency situations on or near a college campus.
This is similar to when someone was murdered off campus near Patterson, in August. There was no alert sent to students.
The Campus Police said it will take three business days to process and approve the police report that was taken. The Clery Act states that campus police must update the daily crime log within two business days.
“The report will be available once it is entered into the system,” Police Chief Bruce Harber said.
The Department of Education says the Clery Act includes language that requires “The crime log for the most recent 60 day period must be open to public inspection, upon request, during normal business hours. You cannot require a written request. Anyone may have access to the log, whether or not they are associated with your institution. This includes media.”
