LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A fraternity brother died in a charity boxing match and now the University of Nevada-Las Vegas has announced it will start looking into new safety protocols going forward. Nathan Valencia died from his injuries during the event in late November.
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UNLV has more than 300 student groups and it is currently reviewing the safety of all of them.
A moment of silence during the board of regents meeting tonight for 20-year-old Nathan Valencia, who died from blunt-force trauma after a school-sanctioned boxing match-up.
“Trying to predict how you prevent a tragedy like this from happening, I wouldn’t even venture a guess as to how you do that,” said Keith Whitfield, UNLV’s president. “We just wouldn’t want it to happen again. So, we’re going to try to figure out: Are there things we can put in place that try to assure that this doesn’t happen again?”
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No specifics were given, just that change is on the way.
“We want to make sure that we have safety written into everything that we do for our students because we want them to be very engaged and active,” said Whitfield. “We just want to make sure that we can provide safe opportunities for them.”
Kappa Sigma, the fraternity involved, has its activities suspended while its ‘Fight Night’ is investigated. That means no interactions with other groups, but that doesn’t mean anyone’s in trouble. There are no charges in the case currently.
The fraternity said in a statement: Kappa Sigma’s International Headquarters is currently conducting a review regarding whether Kappa Sigma’s internal policies and standards were followed by the Chapter; Kappa Sigma expects all of our chapters to conform with all applicable state and local laws.”
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“The only thing that I would ask is for everybody to have the family in their thoughts and to provide them some support so they knew we’re all here for them,” he said.
Whitfield could not say when the safety review will be finished, but that he wants to make sure the whole school learns a lesson from this.
