If you aren’t in Baton Rouge you might not have heard about the stomach-turning Madi Brooks tragedy. She’s the 19-year-old LSU student who died last week after being hit by a car on Burbank Drive south of LSU.

That was tragic enough, but the more the facts came out, the worse things got…

Multiple people have been arrested on rape charges by the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office amid an investigation into the death of 19-year-old LSU student Madi Brooks, the WBRZ Investigative Unit learned Monday.

Sources said a 17-year-old was first booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish juvenile detention center Sunday on a count of third-degree rape.

An 18-year-old man, identified as Kaivon Washington, was booked on Monday, along with Casen Carver, also 18. Washington faces charges of third-degree rape; Carver was booked as a principal to third-degree rape.

A fourth suspect, 28-year-old Everett Lee, is identified as the uncle of Washington and is also booked as a principal to third-degree rape.

According to state law, third-degree rape in Louisiana occurs “when the victim is incapable of resisting or of understanding the nature of the act by reason of a stupor or abnormal condition of mind produced by an intoxicating agent or any cause and the offender knew or should have known of the victim’s incapacity.”

Brooks’ blood-alcohol level was .319 percent at the time, according to arrest documents. That’s nearly four times the legal driving limit for an adult.

In a conversation shortly before his surrender, Washington told WBRZ’s Chris Nakamoto that he had sex with Brooks before she died. Washington said it was consensual.

Washington said he, the other suspects and Brooks left Reggie’s — a bar in Tigerland — early Sunday, Jan. 15, after a night of heavy drinking. He said he and another teen had sex with Brooks in the backseat of a vehicle.

Carver and Lee were in the front seat, according to arrest records.

Washington said Brooks later asked to go home. They brought her back to where she told them she wanted to be dropped off, near the Pelican Lakes subdivision off of Burbank Drive.

Washington said Brooks gave them multiple different addresses before she got out of the car. She was killed a short time later after she wandered into the middle of Burbank. The driver who hit her was not arrested and is not suspected of being impaired.

Washington and Lee are black (yes, we found that slightly ironic as well given the eponymous college and who it’s named for), so of course the NAACP has jumped in and is making a stink about the rape charge. The lawyer for the two men says there is video showing that Madi Brooks was coherent enough to consent to sex.

With a .319 percent blood-alcohol ratio. And the rather inconvenient fact that they dropped her off on the side of the road on Burbank, which in front of Pelican Lakes is essentially a four-lane highway that cars travel along at speeds in excess of 50 mph, and she promptly wandered into the road and was killed.

Sorry. Perhaps there might be a jury empaneled in East Baton Rouge Parish which, for whatever reason, might choose to buy that one. But generally speaking, a girl who’s too drunk to cross a road is a girl who’s too drunk to have consensual sex.

In a car. With not one guy but two. While two others are watching from the front seat.

Carver, the white guy of the group who was driving the car as we understand it, has said he thought it was terrible that his friends did the deed with her; she was too drunk. Guess he felt like he couldn’t stop it; maybe he needed better friends than people who’d offer to give a drunk sorority girl a ride home and then conduct a sex orgy with her past 2:00 in the morning, in a car.

And Lee, the 28-year-old uncle of one of the alleged rapists, was more than happy to have an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old that he’d taken to an LSU college bar have their way with a near-passed-out girl before they dropped her off on the side of a highway.

Yes, this should sound trashy to you. But those are the folks who hang out at Reggie’s, which has been the scummiest bar in the Tigerland section south of LSU for decades. It was that way when it was known as Sports Illustrated; the name was changed after the magazine complained of copyright infringement, if memory serves.

There are hair-raising stories of bar fights and other ugly incidents going back to those days. It’s always been known as a shady, dangerous place.

And the Madi Brooks incident originated at Reggie’s, where she got so plastered that it killed her. This kind of thing is not even uncommon where that bar is concerned. It had its liquor license pulled in 2017, after video surfaced of a bar fight spilling out into the parking lot Blazing Saddles-style surfaced and the cops arrested some 40 people in a raid for underage drinking inside.

But Reggie’s managed to regain the license. The act wasn’t cleaned up, though. They’ve had it pulled again.

A Louisiana bar infamous as a hotspot for underage drinking and violence has had its liquor license suspended after a teenager became so drunk at the bar she was at risk of losing consciousness, and was then raped and hit by a car.

…

Brooks’ death has focused attention again on the notorious bar, and on Tuesday the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control issued an emergency suspension of Reggie’s alcohol license, effective immediately.

The bureau will hold a hearing next month to decide what penalties if any, should be imposed based on the evidence presented.

The bar owner, Darin Adams, whose sports bar is known for its taxidermy animal heads and confederate flag décor, has refused to comment.

Adams has been in hot water before, with Baton Rouge police raiding the bar in July 2017 and suspending its license for 45 days, after 37 people were arrested – many of them for underage drinking.

In September 2015 a drunk 21-year-old was arrested for waving a loaded firearm at people, threatening to open fire.

The following month, a 19-year-old man was charged with rape after attacking an intoxicated woman who had become separated from her sister at the bar and was trying to find her way home.

And in January 2016, a star of the LSU football team, Dillon Gordon, 22, was stabbed multiple times in the bar.

In May 2022, 16-year-old Carltez Tucker was shot dead outside Reggie’s, and a 24-year-old woman was injured. Detectives arrested three and said they believed the shooting stemmed from a stolen firearm that Tucker had taken.

Adams has told the Baton Rouge Advocate that the problems at Reggie’s are not the underage drinkers – defined as LSU students – in the bar, but rather the “undesirables” from the Tigerland neighborhood who prowl the area who cause the trouble. So for the last few years Reggie’s has a “dress code” which prohibits  ‘overly’ baggy clothing and long T-shirts, all-white tennis shoes, hoodies, and jean shorts, neck chains and bandannas on guys, etc.

And that, of course is…

LSU President Bill Tate’s letter to the faculty and students after Brooks’ death pretty much reads as a declaration of war on Reggie’s and probably the rest of Tigerland’s bars as well…

Dear LSU Community,

This afternoon, police arrested four individuals following an investigation into the events preceding the death of LSU student Madison Brooks, who was struck by a vehicle on Burbank Drive last week.

Madison was a daughter, a granddaughter, a sister, a niece, a classmate, and a friend to many of you. By all accounts, she was an amazing young woman with limitless potential. She should not have been taken from us in this way. What happened to her was evil, and our legal system will parcel out justice.

Our collective grief and outrage cannot be put into mere words. So what can we do? It is time for action. One place to target our attention is the very place where this encounter began.

All but one of the suspects involved in this horrific scenario were underage yet were able to consume alcohol at a local bar. As such, our action plan starts with a deep and relentless focus on any establishment that profits off our students by providing alcohol to underage individuals. In the coming days, we will call a meeting with these business owners to discuss how their responsibilities directly impact the safety of our students. We will work openly against any business that doesn’t join us in efforts toward creating a safer environment for our students. Enough is enough.

Real and long-lasting solutions require multiple strategies, so we will not stop there. That is why I am asking our entire Baton Rouge community, from business leaders to citizens, to work together and join us in this effort. We will share additional action items in the coming days, but for now please join me in keeping Madison’s family in our thoughts and prayers.

We can’t argue with that. What would be nice would be if the entire Tigerland area were to be razed and something which didn’t completely suck were to replace it.

And it’s a shame it’s like this. Back in the old days we used to think very highly of Fred’s Bar next door to Reggie’s. To be fair, Fred’s has had nowhere near the volume of incidents as its neighbor.