As LSU reels from Madison Brooks alleged rape and death, crime torments college town

BATON ROUGE, La. – The same night LSU sophomore Madison Brooks died, a ride-share driver said he drove two “muddy, bloodied and bruised” LSU students home who were mugged across the street from the bar where Brooks was last seen alive. 

Brooks, 19, was allegedly raped in a car on Jan. 15 and left on the side of a busy highway about 3.5 miles from Reggie’s bar in  East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, according to court documents. 

Her death shined a lot on a decades-old crime problem inside and around Tigerland, a sparsely lit, party hotspot for LSU students that’s populated by several bars, mini-marts, a liquor store and a smoke shop. 

The streetlights along the five- to 20-minute walk from the bars to the university housing are either burnt out or non-existent, the street lines are faded, and there are no emergency call buttons or sidewalks. 

The path home is a stark contrast to the bright lights of Tiger Stadium, about a mile away, which “can light up the moon,” as one area resident put it.

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“That area has become a war zone,” said Blake Daniel, a former bartender who lives and grew up in Baton Rouge near Tigerland.

“You have underage sorority chicks, frat boys, LSU football player types and now gangsters all coming together and getting wasted,” she told Fox News Digital. “I heard cops won’t even work security there for beaucoup money, because it’s just too dangerous.”

Kurt Mikesell picked up the two LSU students who were attacked around 2:15 a.m. on Jan. 15, which was about 35 minutes before Brooks was hit by a car. 

“That night was the busiest non-football game night that I’ve ever seen,” Mikesell said. “It was raining all night on and off, and it was raining when the bars closed at 2 a.m. There was a mass exodus of hundreds of kids, with upwards of 20 to 30 Uber and Lyft vehicles in area. . . . It’s chaotic. 

“You’re on a constant round loop from about 1:45 a.m. to 2:45 a.m., picking up students and dropping them off. . . . I see hundreds of kids walking home, walking in the street. There’s a bike path that’s not lit, in the middle of nowhere, and girls will walk by themselves along that path. It’s really out of control.”

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A mom of a LSU student, who went to the same high school as Brooks, told Fox News Digital that her daughter had been tased and beaten by a random woman in May 2021. 

The mom, who wished to remain anonymous because she is afraid that her daughter will become a target, said that a confrontation quickly escalated after the attacker nearly ran over her daughter and her friends on their way home from the bars.

One of her daughter’s friends yelled at her to slow down, the mom said, and then the woman pulled over and chased them with the Taser.

She said that they had reported the incident and sent Fox News Digital pictures of the injuries, but that nothing had ever come of it. 

Calls and emails to East Baton Rouge police weren’t returned. 

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The LSU administration messages students when there are known crimes happening in the area. Here are a few alerts that were shared with Fox News Digital:

On Jan. 24, 2022, there was a “suspicious incident” that “required” students to “use caution” in the area. 

On Halloween 2022, there was an aggravated assault. 

On Nov. 17, 2022, there were report of shots fired. 

On Nov. 20, 2022, there was an armed robbery.

“No one knows that my daughter was tased, so how many other crimes don’t we know about?” her mom said. “What else happens that we don’t see?”

Some crimes made headlines, like last May when a man was fatally shot, and his body was found behind Reggie’s, or last September, when 21-year-old LSU student Allie Rice was fatally shot near the train tracks near campus.

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Authorities still don’t have a suspect in Rice’s shooting death, due to a lack of evidence, including security footage, in her case.

On Sunday, 12 people were injured in a mass shooting in Baton Rouge’s Dior Bar & Lounge, which is less than three miles outside Tigerland. 

Paul Rice, Allie’s father, told Fox News Digital on Tuesday, that “something’s got to change” in Baton Rouge. 

“We can’t put it all on the police,” Rice said. “Police aren’t the ones committing the crimes here. It’s going to take community effort. It’s going to take all of us to get involved and say enough is enough.”

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Baton Rouge has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country. 

“Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is among the U.S. cities with the highest homicide rates,” according to a 2021 report in the Center Square, a nonprofit that tracks city data. “There were a total of 102 murders reported in the city in 2020, or 46.5 for every 100,000 people — well above the national homicide rate of 6.5 murders per 100,000.”

Tigerland sticks out from the rest of Baton Rouge because of its connection to LSU, which bills itself as an elite university with a reputation for excellence, where the cost of attendance can top $50,000 a year. 

LSU athletics – especially football – reign in the area. There are murals all over Baton Rouge, storefronts are covered with the LSU tiger logo, there are football schedules in hotels and bars, and the stadium towers over the city. 

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During the weekdays, especially during the football offseason, Tigerland is quiet. Crowds start to flock to the bars on Thursday and get larger Friday, Mikesell said. 

By about midnight on Saturdays, the area turns into a weekly spring break, with hundreds or thousands of people, stumbling drunk, vomiting and even passing out. 

Mikesell said he usually sees between two and four police officers in the area, and they’re usually hands-off. 

Following Monday’s announcement that four men had been arrested and charged with Brooks’ rape, LSU President William Tate IV made a lengthy statement about making an aggressive push to curtailing underage drinking. 

That was met with backlash from student groups and parents, who said that Tate’s remarks were “victim blaming” and didn’t address the core issue of sexual assaults and creating a safe environment for students. 

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Tigerland is technically municipal property and not an official extension of LSU, requiring several city entities, multiple law enforcement agencies, LSU and the bars to coordinate with each other. 

It’s a layered, complicated problem with no easy, quick-fix solutions, but there’s already been fallout from Brooks’ death after the state Alcohol and Tobacco Control issued an emergency suspension of Reggie’s. 

“Honoring Madison’s life requires us to take every possible step to protect students,” Cody Worsham, the interim vice president of LSU’s Office of Communications and University Relations, told Fox News Digital in an email. 

“Coming down hard on bars that are serving minors in our community is one of many strategies the president is proposing. We invite the entire Baton Rouge community to join us as we unite against all forms of violence and develop further strategies toward its prevention.”

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Kris Perret, the attorney who represents Reggie’s Bar, said that business owners had contacted Tate directly on Wednesday “and look forward to meeting with him and his team soon to work together to address the issues that he has raised.

“When asked what their plan was and how LSU proposed to partner with local businesses and stakeholders, and what assistance and suggestions they might provide, LSU’s response to us was to thank us for reaching out and that they would get back to us in the coming weeks.,” Perret said in a statement Thursday. “We look forward to hearing back from President Tate and his team soon.”

Meanwhile, the three adult suspects arrested in Brooks’ case have been released from the Baton Rouge jail, records show. 

Kaivon Washington, the 18-year-old suspect charged with third-degree rape, posted $150,000 bond and was released from Louisiana’s East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office lockup on Thursday, records show.

Casen Carver, 18, and Everett Lee, 28, both of whom were charged with being principals to third-degree rape, posted a combined $125,000 bond and were released on Tuesday. Lee is Washington’s uncle, records show. 

The second third-degree rape suspect, a 17-year-old whose identity has not been released, is not due in court until February.

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In Louisiana, third-degree rape involves sexual intercourse that “is deemed to be without the lawful consent of a victim,” according to state law.

Visitation and funeral services for Brooks will be held in Covington, Louisiana, on Feb. 3.