Four Phi Delta Theta pledges at Texas State University were arrested in San Marcos after witnesses reported seeing several men force a fellow fraternity member into a pickup truck while he yelled for them to let him go. Police identified the suspects as 18-year-old Tyler Fogg, 19-year-old William Oldner, 18-year-old Wyatt Carr and 20-year-old Noah Lara, and said those involved described the incident as a tradition.
According to KSAT, San Marcos police received multiple calls on October 20 about men forcing another man into a blue pickup truck, a report attributed to city spokesman Russell Wilde, who serves as public safety communications specialist for the City of San Marcos. Wilde said officers later found the truck at an apartment complex, and that the incident involved members of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity at Texas State University. Police said the man forced into the truck was an active member of the fraternity, and that the four suspects were pledges.
Court records cited in the station's report show the group was charged with misdemeanor hazing and received a magistrate warning. The station's report does not detail bond amounts, court dates or how the case might ultimately be resolved.
University Says It Won't Discuss Discipline
The outlet's investigative team asked Texas State University whether the incident would result in any disciplinary action. Jayme Blaschke, the university's director of University Communications & Public Relations, said the university does not discuss matters of student discipline, per the same account. The reporters also emailed Phi Delta Theta on Thursday afternoon and had not immediately received a response, the report notes.
Texas State's own hazing policy, published by its Dean of Students Office, states plainly that “at Texas State, hazing is strictly prohibited for students, faculty, and staff, both on and off campus.” The university also says a student's consent does not make hazing permissible, and that consent is not a defense in its disciplinary process. Per the same policy, “the University may take disciplinary action for conduct that constitutes hazing regardless of whether public authorities prosecute students under the state hazing law” — meaning campus consequences, if any, could run independent of whatever happens with the misdemeanor charges. The university directs people to report hazing to the Dean of Students Office.
A Pattern That Predates This Week's Arrests
This is not the first time Texas State's Greek system has drawn scrutiny over hazing. In November 2017, the university suspended activities of all Greek fraternity and sorority chapters after a fraternity pledge died, according to NBC News. Months earlier, in February 2017, four Texas State fraternities received suspensions ranging from two to five years following an investigation into an off-campus party, as reported by News 4 San Antonio. Farther back, in 2013, thirteen students in the university's Bobcat Marching Band faced hazing charges following a three-week joint investigation by the school and local police, according to USA Today, which reported that investigators were still examining whether the band had a broader history of hazing.
Phi Delta Theta chapters elsewhere have faced similar discipline. At Wichita State, the fraternity's chapter was placed on disciplinary probation and deferred suspension for hazing and other violations in 2018, according to The Sunflower, which reported the sanctions required the chapter to develop mandatory hazing-prevention, alcohol-awareness and bystander-intervention workshops.
The Scale of the Problem Statewide
The San Marcos arrests land amid a broader pattern tracked across Texas campuses. Texas colleges and universities have reported 215 hazing incidents since 2018, according to an investigation by HazingInfo, which found that 29 Texas campuses reported at least one incident during that span. The group also found that only 59% of the state's colleges and universities were following a Texas law requiring public disclosure of hazing incidents, and that across nine states it reviewed, 999 hazing incidents were reported on 173 campuses between 2018 and 2025.
Texas law itself requires postsecondary institutions to publish a hazing report covering disciplinary actions against organizations and any hazing convictions from the preceding three years, according to the Texas Education Code as cited by Justia, and to update that report within 30 days after a disciplinary process is resolved or a conviction becomes final. Whether that reporting requirement will touch this week's case remains to be seen, since neither the university nor Phi Delta Theta has detailed what, if anything, comes next.
