SDSU: No charges in death of freshman fraternity pledge who died after top-bunk fall

No criminal charges will be filed in connection with the death last year of Dylan Hernandez, a 19-year-old freshman who suffered a fatal blow to the head when he fell out of a campus bunk bed after a night of drinking at a fraternity party, San Diego State University said late Thursday.

SDSU President Adela de la Torre said the school will begin its own “independent, administrative review and student misconduct investigations.”

“These campus-led administrative investigations will focus on potential violations of university policies, unlike UPD’s investigation, which considered only potential criminal violations,” she said. “The administrative review process will start immediately, and proceed over the coming weeks.”

The announcement drew a different response from George Kindley, the attorney for the Hernandez family. He said the family plans to file a lawsuit against SDSU since it feels “they have been failed by the school, the school’s PR, and the school’s police.”

The announcement comes more than seven months after Hernandez died and five months after his family publicly questioned the ability of campus police to conduct a thorough, timely and professional investigation. The family said through its attorney that the police appear to have failed to quickly identify and interview witnesses who were present on Nov. 6, when Hernandez attended an off-campus party thrown by Phi Gamma Delta. He was pledging to the fraternity.

A preliminary campus police report said that Hernandez later returned to his campus dorm and subsequently fell out of the top of two-level bunk bed. He suffered accidental blunt force trauma to the head, according to the County Medical Examiner. Hernandez was pronounced dead on Nov. 8.

A county autopsy said that his blood-alcohol level was 0.06 percent when paramedics took him to a nearby hospital about 9 a.m. on Nov. 7. The preliminary SDSU report said Hernandez’s blood-alcohol was estimated to be about 0.23 percent when he left the Phi Gamma Delta party the night before. It is illegal to drive in California if you have a blood alcohol level of 0.08 or higher.

The statement President de la Torre issued Thursday said campus police “began interviewing witnesses, reviewing camera footage, and collecting videos, pictures, and digital media that had been posted on social media platforms. For this particular case, UPD consulted with the District Attorney’s Office to investigate any potential criminal charges arising out of Hernandez’s death.”

SDSU also noted that in mid-May its police department submitted its findings to the District Attorney’s office. “Detectives concluded that there was no basis to prove manslaughter charges because Hernandez’s death was an accident, and there was no witness or autopsy evidence supporting the existence of any criminal activity that was causally linked to Hernandez’s death,” the university said.

“There was no basis to prove hazing charges because there were no injuries upon Hernandez’s body that appeared consistent with hazing, and no evidence of student group activities likely to cause serious bodily injury or death, which is statutorily required to prove hazing.”

After the Hernandez family received the preliminary campus police report in late December, they said through their attorney they were puzzled that the investigation seemed complete, noting that police said, “case suspended pending additional evidence or information.”

The family also said it did not appear that police had quickly identified and interview potential witness, including fraternity members who likely had videos and images from the party.

“The university and the police department made a promise that they were going to investigate the drinking and the hazing that they knew happened that night,” Julia Hernandez, one of Dylan’s two sisters, said earlier this year.

“When my dad spoke to them recently they said they have not interviewed anyone [who was] at the party, they have not gone to the [fraternity] house, they have not retained any information from the fraternity or its members, so, in our eyes, the investigation isn’t complete.”

Last year, De la Torre appointed two task forces to examine the behavior in fraternities and the abuse of alcohol and drugs. The task forces have met almost exclusively in private.

On mid-December, the Union-Tribune filed a Public Records Act requesting extensive information about how the school’s fraternities and sororities operate, and how disciplinary problems have been handled. SDSU later said that the university has continued to have problems with the fraternities. But it has not turned over the information requested by the U-T.