Newly released police bodycam video from a 2024 alleged hazing incident at a University of Iowa fraternity house has been going viral.
A short clip of the incident posted on X was nearing 52 million views Friday evening, while a YouTube video clocking in at over an hour has eclipsed 250,000 views as the weekend commences.
‘We finally found a pledge class that isn’t the worst ever.’
The video shows dozens of shirtless pledges from the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity — some of them covered in ketchup and blindfolded — in a dark basement as police and firefighters converge on the bizarre scene after a fire alarm was activated, KCRG-TV reported.
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“This is the police department! This stops here! Who’s in charge?” one officer asks in the video, after which a voice is heard saying, “They’re upstairs.”
Another official asks the group as a flashlight shines on them, “Does anyone want to be forthcoming about what’s going on?”
But they’re mum on the matter.
“Looks like we have quite a bit of hazing,” one official is heard saying in the bodycam video.
One male wearing a white Iowa hoodie — and apparently drinking a beer and vaping — is seen in the raw clip apparently making life difficult for police at the scene.
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Image source: University of Iowa Police bodycam video screenshot, redacted
“You got f**kin’ nothin’,” he tells officers at one point. In another segment he tells a cop, “You guys can f**kin’ leave, how ’bout that?” and “there’s no hazing.”
Officers found 56 pledges in two dark rooms during the incident, KCRG said.
“They’re just messin’ with them,” one male, another apparent non-pledge, tells an officer after being asked what had been going on.
While no one appeared to reveal specifically who was in charge, the station did say the pledges “responded in unison” that no one was there against their will.
KCRG said prosecutors charged one arrestee with interference with official acts, but the charge was later dropped.
The University of Iowa suspended Alpha Delta Phi until the summer of 2029, the station said, adding that three fraternities presently are under suspension.
The “Circling Back” podcast, however, expressed quite a different perspective on the bodycam video, as one podcast participant noted, “We finally found a pledge class that isn’t the worst ever.”
The podcast crew also remarked that the frat pledges seemed decidedly less interested in obeying “actual law enforcement” than their frat leaders: “These guys need to be celebrated.”
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