The new East Baton Rouge Parish district attorney said he is moving forward with prosecution of seven Southern University band members arrested for hazing late last year.

But the process is taking longer than expected because the two primary victims live out of state, as do five of the seven who were arrested, District Attorney Hillar Moore said.

On campus, Southern University Chancellor Kofi Lomotey said the marching band has been temporarily “disbanded” for the semester. The marching band does not perform much during the spring because football is over.

“The band has been disbanded and students are having to reapply, in a sense,” Lomotey said.

Such actions are important to “increase expectations” and highlight the seriousness of the matter, he said. “That kind of behavior is not to be accepted,” Lomotey said of hazing concerns.

Southern’s recent hazing incident was part of a Nov. 25 initiation into the marching band’s unofficial French horn fraternity — “Mellow Phi Fellow” — prior to the annual Bayou Classic football game, according to arrest records. The hazing occurred at a home north of Baton Rouge.

The three victims were allegedly beaten with a 2-by-4-inch wooden board, arrest records stated.

Two of the three students were hospitalized with injuries that, at least at one point, threatened possible organ failure, according to East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office records.

The two who were hospitalized — but since released — are back home in Mississippi and Georgia, Moore said, as are five of the alleged perpetrators.

Law enforcement and the university refuse to release the names of the victims.

Moore said his office recently received all of the reports and photographs taken by sheriff’s deputies.

Arrangements are being made to meet with the victims for more in-depth information, Moore said.

The next decision is whether to proceed with charges against all seven who were arrested through a grand jury investigation or by charging them through a bill of information, which is a not a grand jury indictment but a formal charge of the crime, Moore said.

“Any time a student is injured on campus or at any campus-related event, it’s serious,” Moore said. “And hazing is taken very seriously.”

Some students dream of being in Southern’s Human Jukebox marching band, Moore said, “only to have to be beaten” for initiation.

The seven students who were arrested remain indefinitely suspended, Lomotey said.

They were all released on bail.

The seven are accused of “ritualistic torture” and booked with aggravated second-degree battery and ritualistic acts, which is punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

While some band students are still practicing together on their own time, Lomotey said there are no plans for the band to be “reconstituted” during the current spring semester.

Southern spokesman Ed Pratt said some freshman band students are playing at Southern basketball games. But they are not considered the full marching band, Pratt said.

Southern’s band director, Lawrence Jackson, declined comment when he returned a phone call, noting he did not have university permission to speak about the marching band.

“I’m not at liberty to say anything,” Jackson said.