The other day we at TFM posted a news story about a group of ATOs at the University of Illinois who, last Tuesday night, allegedly decided to go on your run of the mill vandalization rampage, damaging cars and breaking windows, before finally being arrested. After posting the story, a veritable flood of emails and tweets came pouring in from Illinois ATOs. They claimed that what we published was lies, and that the information we had was not the real story. When I asked one ATO what the real story was, he didn’t actually have one.

They said they would sue (the ultimate white person threat!). They even got a lawyer to contact us. I had enough sources to believe the story was true, but unfortunately, nothing more than those claims to that point. No news outlet had published anything about the alleged incident yet, and no police reports had been made available to that point. I even tried to contact the local authorities to confirm the story, but sadly, my requests to take a look at their records and splice said records with dick jokes was ignored. So despite the fact that we suspected that the story was in essence true, we caved to ATO’s whining and took the story down. Here is that story, in its entirety:

The news out of Champaign is still sketchy, and neither the Champaign Police Department or the University of Illinois Police Department have released anything officially yet. Still, several sources have confirmed that last night, the Alpha Tau Omega chapter at Illinois got into what the legal community would call “some shit.” According to one tipster, last night, an unknown number of ATOs started their night at the popular Illinois bar KAMS, where they most definitely consumed awesomely inadvisable amounts of alcohol. From there, possibly because the semester is over and Illinois ATOs express their happiness with anger, they headed down Chalmers Street and began to vandalize cars. After damaging several vehicles, the ATOs moved to 3rd Street and threw a brick through the window of the dining hall at Bromley Hall, a University of Illinois dorm. At this point, someone had reported their actions. Some ATOs were arrested on the quad, while others fled back to the ATO house where they, too, were eventually arrested. ATO is generally considered one of the top houses at Illinois, as evidenced, at the very least, by the things they write on their arms for parties. ATO’s actual house was also ranked as the eighth best structure in the Big Ten by TFM. According to several sources the fraternity might not survive this latest issue. Recently, the chapter has been in some hot water for hazing and drugs. There are rumors that when the police arrested the ATOs who made it back to their house, officers found drugs on the premises. However, those rumors are from Yik-Yak, so until everyone else who has ever been mentioned on Yik-Yak officially comes out as gay or as a whore, definitively proving everything on Yik-Yak is actually true, those rumors are unsubstantiated. Let this be a lesson to all of you. If you break things outside of your fraternity house, pledges can’t fix it.

The above story was described by one ATO, via email, as the following:

This article has very inaccurate information and needs to be taken down immediately. It tarnishing our reputation and a large problem.

After I didn’t immediately take the story down, the same guy followed up with this:

The legal term for this is defamation, I need a response immediately as well as immediate action.

Uh oh. Legal terms! We’re one step away from legal threats! Let’s take a look at the general definition of defamation, real quick, just to be clear. You need to be clear with these guys.

Defamation is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation.

I guess for this to be defamation what I said would have had to be false, then. Oh boy, if only I had some way to prove that it wasn’t. TAKE IT AWAY, Champaign Police Lieutenant Jim Clark!

“We had a report at about 9 o’clock of a group of, uh, individuals from a fraternity kinda running through campus, jumping on cars, um just being disorderly on campus, um reportedly broke a window at Bromley Hall, caused some problems at KAMS bar, those kind of things. Probably going to be in the several thousands of dollars worth of damage.”

That’s a transcript of an interview Lt. Clark did with The News Gazette, which is also reporting that ATO has been suspended by their national office while an investigation takes place.

We then received an email from an attorney on Illinois ATO’s Board of Trustees, though as far as I can tell not the attorney that actually represents the chapter or national office, but rather a guy saying “I’m an attorney” and putting his dick on the table in order to scare us. In an email, he called the story “deliberately misleading, disparaging, and factually incorrect.”

Well, uh, I think the Champaign PD would disagree, so maybe go fuck yourself, bud. In fact, according to the Champaign PD’s account, I didn’t even report ALL the problems the ATOs were allegedly responsible for that night. Apparently I forgot to mention the part where they allegedly “caused trouble” at KAMS. I left that part out because it was one of the few parts of the story that the sources could not agree upon.

Here’s one account:

I’m an employee of KAMS and saw everything go down first hand. The ATOs didn’t start at KAMS but in fact at their house, making their way to lion, then the destruction to property, and finally they stormed the door of kams. The police were already on their tracks when they ran into kams so they trampled the staff and instantly heard the sirens and lights.

And here are two others, from the same source, who updated that part of the story in a later email:

Once they realized that the police were on their heels, they tried to take refuge in legendary Champaign bar KAMS. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to lose the heat, so they made a b-line for the back exit, knocking down a shit ton of tables on their way out.

the incident actually started at KAMS, on Daniel Street. Chalmer’s street is where the cars got fucked up, which lead to the brick being thrown through Bromley Hall on Third.

Deciding to be responsible and leave out anything that may be untrue or rumor, I excluded any mention of trouble caused at KAMS, and instead elected simply to mention that the ATOs had allegedly been there.

So let’s get this straight once and for all, guys. University of Illinois ATO members, at some point on the night of Tuesday, May 6th, and in some as yet to be determined order, ALLEGEDLY broke a window at Bromley Hall (pictured above), damaged multiple cars, and caused some sort of ruckus at KAMS before members were arrested.

I do apologize for writing an unsubstantiated rumor about drugs possibly being found in my original story, even though I made it completely and totally clear that the rumor was unsubstantiated and thus not to be believed. Sorry, it was mostly to set up a joke about Yik-Yak.

Here is some advice for all future emailers of Total Frat Move, if and when your fraternity is mentioned. Instead of getting your panties in a twist and shouting in your highest pitched voice, “WE’LL SUE YOU SHUT UP!”, appeal to our fraternity side. A simple, “Hey man, this could get us in some shit, can you take it down or take some stuff out?” will go a lot further with us than outright calling us liars and all the aforementioned legal bullshit. That just pisses us off.

[via The News Gazette]