A Miami Secret Service agent in Florida was placed on administrative leave following his arrest on Sunday in connection with a near-deadly hazing incident at a University of Miami fraternity.
Marquez Christopher Pinder, 29, was arrested alongside two other individuals on suspicion of attempted manslaughter with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, and hazing with a deadly weapon. Pinder was the “dean of pledges” for Kappa Alpha Psi, a historically black fraternity.
Special Agent in Charge of the Miami field office Michael Townsend told the Washington Examiner that Pinder was placed on administrative leave immediately following local law enforcement informing him of the investigation. Townsend said the USSS is “fully cooperating” with investigators.
Pinder has worked for the Secret Service in Miami since 2023, according to Townsend, and is in the Navy Reserve. He graduated from Florida International University in 2021, but his profile does not list him as a student affiliated with the University of Miami or Kappa Alpha Psi.
Pinder, Jared Lamar James, 26, and Elijah Delano Dyous, 29, are each facing multiple felony charges related to a dayslong hazing ritual that took place in April. The hazing happened between April 1 and 4, primarily at an apartment roughly 9 miles from the university campus.
Two pledges were injured as a result of hazing and have not been identified. Police reports allege the two victims were “subjected to severe beatings” because they failed to “correctly answer questions about the fraternity.”
Both victims sought medical attention as a result of their injuries caused by the hazing. One victim, named “Victim 1” in police documents, had to undergo skin grafts due to his backside being “blackened by the presence of necrotic skin/tissue,” according to reports of the arrest warrant. Police speculate that Victim 1’s injuries could have caused renal failure and ultimately death if he had not sought emergency medical care.
The second victim, “Victim 2,” told police he was not subjected to hazing, but sought medical care for injuries to his backside in April.
Florida law categorizes hazing as a criminal offense, with penalties ranging from a first-degree misdemeanor to a third-degree felony depending on the extent of bodily injury.
Pinder’s arrest comes as the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, faces scrutiny over its vetting process for agents and officers following the fatal shooting of Johan Sebastian Durán Guerrero by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Biddeford, Maine.
The ICE officer who fired the fatal shot in Maine was reported to have abuse allegations from two ex-wives, which at one point led to an order for him to surrender his firearms.
SECRET SERVICE AGENT FOR VANCE UNDER REVIEW FOR ALLEGEDLY LEAKING INFORMATION
“If those are facts, I don’t think he should have ever cleared vetting,” Homan said of the Maine ICE officer in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. He said a history of violence, “should have been brought to the attention of those who make those decisions.”
DHS has not yet released the identity of the officers involved in the fatal shooting in Maine.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
