Photo documentation of the AEPi gorilla attack

You may have read in today's print Cross Campus that an AEPi brother was struck by a water balloon as part of the fraternity's "Protect the President Day" pledge event.

The full story: At 2 p.m. Thursday, Bill Toth '11 and a man in a gorilla suit walked across Cross Campus. They carried a bicycle, a video camera and a bag of water balloons with them, and on their lips was the name of Alpha Epsilon Pi president Robert Klipper '11.

Toth and the gorilla, both AEPi brothers, were staking out William L. Harkness Hall as part of Protect the President Day, an annual tradition in which freshman pledges armed with squirt guns must act as bodyguards for the fraternity's president during the course of the school day. Their goal is to protect the president from his fellow brothers, who try to "assassinate" him in a series of planned water balloon attacks.

The plan: When Klipper exited Sudler Hall and walked onto Cross Campus at 2:15 p.m., the gorilla would ride by on the bicycle and assassinate him with a yellow, banana-shaped balloon. AEPi pledge and erstwhile bodyguard Evan Feinberg '13 was no match for the gorilla, who rode onto College Street and soaked Klipper with a single well-aimed balloon just after 2:20 p.m.

"It was so much more of a success than I expected it to be," Toth said. "None of us thought it would actually work."

Photos from the assassination:

Bill Toth '11 is helps gorilla prepare as he waits for Robert Klipper '11 outside William L. Harkness Hall.

Klipper embraces the gorilla after the assassination is complete.