INSIDE EDITION talks to a former Florida A&M marching band member about hazing rituals that he says should be considered a crime.
Ivery Lucky says he suffered a horrific hazing ritual when he was a member of the Florida A&M University band—the legendary Marching 100. He's speaking out now because of the death of drum major Robert Champion, in a suspected hazing ritual.
Ivery had heard that band members were paddled in a rite of passage and believed he could take it.
Lucky told INSIDE EDITION, "I knew that i was going to be hazed. I did think okay, if I get hit with a paddle, you'd think it would be fifteen, twenty times, what's that? I can handle that. But I didn't know that it would be to the extent that it was."
It turned out to be a much more barbaric ritual that he had imagined. He said he was repeatedly beaten with a paddle. He was told to count how many times he was hit. If he lost count, the paddling would start over again. In all, he says he was whacked on the butt about three hundred times.
"By the time they've hit you fourty or fifty times you begin to lose count. Start all over again and that's how I estimate three hundred times that that I was paddled," said Lucky.
And when the paddling was over, the hazing didn't stop.
"There became bouts of face-slapping," said Lucky.
INSIDE EDITION's Les Trent asked, "Face slapping? How many times did you get slapped in the face."
"Dozens of times," Lucky replied.
After the brutal hazing in 1998, Lucky was so ill he went to the emergency room.
Lucky said, "My organs were beginning to shut down."
"You could have died?" asked Trent.
"I could have. Yes," said Lucky.
Lucky sued the university and settled for $50,000. Today he's a successful banker on Wall Street. He knew Robert Champion and was horrified by his tragic death.
Trent asked, "You think peoople who indulge in this kind of behavior should go to jail?"
"I do. Because, it should be a crime," said Lucky.
