“We didn’t know what they were going to yell at us for,” Tran said.

UC Davis’ Alpha Kappa Psi chapter president Jocelyn Chern declined to comment Thursday, and referred questions to Brian Parker, the executive director and chief operating officer of the fraternity’s national branch.

Parker said the national branch received a complaint of the allegations on Sunday, which started their standard internal chapter conduct review process. The suspensions are effective until the investigation is concluded, he said.

“Our overall goal is a safe and healthy environment for all students, alumni, and guests, for all (Alpha Kappa Psi) events and activities,” Parker said. “This process can take several weeks, depending on the complexity of a conduct review and number of people who may be involved.”

The Irvine-area native said he stayed with the pledging process for two weeks because he paid $190 as part of a recruitment fee, and he enjoyed his peers pledging alongside him. And, he hoped, the process would become easier as time went on.

His perspective changed April 10 after a pledging event at Nugget Hill, a soccer field managed by the Davis AYSO chapter, left him debilitated.

Fraternity members shined flashlights on recruits’ faces for three hours as they lined up after dark on Nugget Field. The recruits were forced to list the Greek alphabet and Founding Fathers, Tran wrote in the letter describing the events and provided to The Sacramento Bee.

“Each mistake a pledge brother made was followed by yelling or demeaning comments from the active brothers,” he wrote.

The incident sparked the medical trauma, according to Tran. He told The Bee in his letter that he was hyperventilating and dry heaving after the incident. He said he also suffered spasms and other symptoms during the ordeal that night.

But for one hour, recruits and fraternity members stood by and watched him suffer. A sensation of pins and needles spread throughout his limbs before he was taken to a hospital emergency room, he said.

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