Knoxville News
Sentinel
February 23, 2003
Seven University of Tennessee students face an April trial on charges they assaulted a young man who had not been initiated into their fraternity chapter.
Jeremy Scott McDuffie, 20; Matthew Travis Wooden, 20; Ronnie Clark Jr., 21; Edward Hollingsworth, 20; Omar Ketron Jackson, 22; Karl Anthony Jennings, 23; and Calvin Skinner, 21, were arrested and charged with assault after the Nov. 7 incident.
Edward Davenport, 21, told university
police he was attacked by about 13 members of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity
while he was attending the fraternity's step show on campus. Police said they
could not find all the
alleged attackers.
The UT chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha
Fraternity was suspended in November after the incident. Ron Jenkins, spokesman
for the fraternity's southeastern regional office, told The Daily Beacon campus
newspaper that
he had no comment on whether the suspension was related to the reported attack.
Davenport, who pledged Alpha Phi Alpha at a Georgia university, believed the fraternity members attacked him because he had not been through their chapter's initiation, according to the UT police report.
The attackers pulled off a necklace with the fraternity's symbol that he was wearing and then "began to hit and kick him in the face and about the head," the report said.
Davenport was treated for minor injuries at UT Medical Center. He has reported being harassed several times since the alleged attack.
A trial for the students was set
for April 15 in Knox County General Sessions Court.
