USC sanctions for student, fraternity chapter not set
A USC student was arrested Monday night after the Chi Psi fraternity house director found a jammed shotgun under the house’s stairs.
Tony Silva, 20, a second-year marketing student, was charged with possessing a gun on school property, according to a report from USC’s Division of Law Enforcement and Safety.
By Tuesday afternoon, Silva was out of jail and going through the student conduct process, said Anna Edwards, the director of Student Services.
Silva had asked to borrow the gun from William Benthall, a Midlands Technical College student, to go skeet shooting with his sister, but the gun jammed while they were shooting, the report said. Silva didn’t know how to clear the jam, so he brought it back to campus and stored it under the Chi Psi house stairs, so he could return it to Benthall at the fraternity’s chapter meeting Monday night, the report said.
An officer was called to the Chi Psi house by its director just before 10 p.m. Monday when she found the shotgun in a green case.
The house was soon cleared out and multiple police cars arrived, witnesses said.
By 11:30 p.m., Silva had been transported to the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, and Benthall had been placed on trespass notice by USC police.
Further sanctions against Silva and Chi Psi were unclear Tuesday afternoon.
Edwards said she would be meeting with representatives from Chi Psi’s national headquarters to discuss the situation.
Chi Psi President Michael Leadmon said in an email that the fraternity as a whole was not involved in the incident.