Reported hazing incident involving Damascus High School JV Football team

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was in USA Today yesterday:

"When the Damascus (Md.) High School junior varsity football team was accused of sexual assault in connection with a hazing incident, it sent shockwaves through the Maryland prep football community. Now that some of the details of the alleged incident have been revealed in court, the sophomore-on-freshmen incident appears even more horrific than ever.
Here’s how the Washington Post described the lead-up to the alleged sexual assaults that occurred in the Damascus locker room, as described in court Monday:
When the sophomore football players entered the freshman locker room, authorities say, one held up a four-foot broom. He pumped his fist and chanted.
Lights went off. The handle of the broom could be heard banging against a wall.
“It’s time,” another sophomore said.
One of the freshmen tried to leave. A sophomore blocked him from doing so.
If the idea of being sodomized by a broom wasn’t already horrific enough, consider that brief foray into a C-rated horror script intended to intimidate a group of freshman football players. Perhaps more significantly, it’s a pretty clear indication that the suspects now in court had an idea about what they were doing.
The four 15-year-old suspects were all released Monday on $20,000 bond.
The school is still awaiting the result of the case against the teens before launching its own investigation into the supervision of the athletes. It remains to be seen what impact that has on the larger Damascus football program, but given the events that apparently transpired in the locker room, it may not reflect too well on whichever coaches are deemed to be responsible for the JV program."

Thank god this is getting national attention. Damascus HS should be ashamed for letting varsity finish the seasons without a complete, independent investigation. Shameful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Everything in context. Yes, they are young enough that their judgment in grey areas is suspect and should be given the benefit of the doubt and transferred to juvenile court. They are not so young that they cannot understand the severity of felonious crimes. There is no grey area when dealing with murder, rape, or violent crimes. A 15 year old should definitely know that these are very definitely and unequivocally wrong and punishable crimes. In this age of #MeToo, media coverage and social media coverage, all teens should have a very strong idea that any time of non-consensual acts of violence are very wrong. There have been dozens of hazing crimes that have gone national in the last few years and it should be obvious that hazing is not a joke, or acceptable in any way. Just Google "hazing crimes" and you'll get lists and most of these perps are being charged in court for felony crimes. If these are honor roll students, they know what that means. If the media and defense are going to try to postulate that these are honor roll students who are "good kids" then they should be smart enough to know better.

This correctly deserves to be in the adult court system. If this were something like shoplifting, B&E, or some other victimless crime, I agree that 15 is young to be able to discern the severity of a victimless crime, but it is not too young to know how wrong a violent crime against a victim is. There is a very good reason for the automatic waive-up rule for serious crimes and it definitely applies in this case.

If these boys had forced an underaged girl into the high school locker room and sexually assaulted her, would you think that this was a juvenile court system crime? If you do, then I question your own moral standards and am glad that wiser and more mature individuals have crafted our court guidelines. There is nothing youthful or innocent about first degree rape.

Yes.

To repeat: it's the juvenile justice system because the alleged crime-committers are juveniles, not because the crimes are non-serious.

Thankfully the law doesn’t agree with you and these sick bastards are being charged as adults.

Sick bastards is right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes.

To repeat: it's the juvenile justice system because the alleged crime-committers are juveniles, not because the crimes are non-serious.

Thankfully the law doesn’t agree with you and these sick bastards are being charged as adults.

Sick bastards is right.

Reading about the the lead up to the rape is disgusting. They knew exactly what they were doing and what would happen. Hopefully they will be in jail for many, many years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was in USA Today yesterday:

"When the Damascus (Md.) High School junior varsity football team was accused of sexual assault in connection with a hazing incident, it sent shockwaves through the Maryland prep football community. Now that some of the details of the alleged incident have been revealed in court, the sophomore-on-freshmen incident appears even more horrific than ever.
Here’s how the Washington Post described the lead-up to the alleged sexual assaults that occurred in the Damascus locker room, as described in court Monday:
When the sophomore football players entered the freshman locker room, authorities say, one held up a four-foot broom. He pumped his fist and chanted.
Lights went off. The handle of the broom could be heard banging against a wall.
“It’s time,” another sophomore said.
One of the freshmen tried to leave. A sophomore blocked him from doing so.
If the idea of being sodomized by a broom wasn’t already horrific enough, consider that brief foray into a C-rated horror script intended to intimidate a group of freshman football players. Perhaps more significantly, it’s a pretty clear indication that the suspects now in court had an idea about what they were doing.
The four 15-year-old suspects were all released Monday on $20,000 bond.
The school is still awaiting the result of the case against the teens before launching its own investigation into the supervision of the athletes. It remains to be seen what impact that has on the larger Damascus football program, but given the events that apparently transpired in the locker room, it may not reflect too well on whichever coaches are deemed to be responsible for the JV program."

So basically they taunted them while gang raping them. As if it couldn’t get worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was in USA Today yesterday:

"When the Damascus (Md.) High School junior varsity football team was accused of sexual assault in connection with a hazing incident, it sent shockwaves through the Maryland prep football community. Now that some of the details of the alleged incident have been revealed in court, the sophomore-on-freshmen incident appears even more horrific than ever.
Here’s how the Washington Post described the lead-up to the alleged sexual assaults that occurred in the Damascus locker room, as described in court Monday:
When the sophomore football players entered the freshman locker room, authorities say, one held up a four-foot broom. He pumped his fist and chanted.
Lights went off. The handle of the broom could be heard banging against a wall.
“It’s time,” another sophomore said.
One of the freshmen tried to leave. A sophomore blocked him from doing so.
If the idea of being sodomized by a broom wasn’t already horrific enough, consider that brief foray into a C-rated horror script intended to intimidate a group of freshman football players. Perhaps more significantly, it’s a pretty clear indication that the suspects now in court had an idea about what they were doing.
The four 15-year-old suspects were all released Monday on $20,000 bond.
The school is still awaiting the result of the case against the teens before launching its own investigation into the supervision of the athletes. It remains to be seen what impact that has on the larger Damascus football program, but given the events that apparently transpired in the locker room, it may not reflect too well on whichever coaches are deemed to be responsible for the JV program."

Thank god this is getting national attention. Damascus HS should be ashamed for letting varsity finish the seasons without a complete, independent investigation. Shameful

Agreed. But not positive that the national attention will lead to any meaningful change. MCPS has a history of just moving along and not adressing any issues involving sexual abuse in schools.

You would think that the JV coaches should have been ‘deemed responsible’. But it doesn’t really look that way so far.

[Anonymous]

Why do they need an investigation to fire the jv coaches?!

[Anonymous]

The football program needs to be shut down for a year. They need to send a clear message that hazing of any sort is not tolerated. That it is everyone's responsibility to be aware and to work to prevent it. Maybe the loss of a school year of football will convince them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was in USA Today yesterday:

"When the Damascus (Md.) High School junior varsity football team was accused of sexual assault in connection with a hazing incident, it sent shockwaves through the Maryland prep football community. Now that some of the details of the alleged incident have been revealed in court, the sophomore-on-freshmen incident appears even more horrific than ever.
Here’s how the Washington Post described the lead-up to the alleged sexual assaults that occurred in the Damascus locker room, as described in court Monday:
When the sophomore football players entered the freshman locker room, authorities say, one held up a four-foot broom. He pumped his fist and chanted.
Lights went off. The handle of the broom could be heard banging against a wall.
“It’s time,” another sophomore said.
One of the freshmen tried to leave. A sophomore blocked him from doing so.
If the idea of being sodomized by a broom wasn’t already horrific enough, consider that brief foray into a C-rated horror script intended to intimidate a group of freshman football players. Perhaps more significantly, it’s a pretty clear indication that the suspects now in court had an idea about what they were doing.
The four 15-year-old suspects were all released Monday on $20,000 bond.
The school is still awaiting the result of the case against the teens before launching its own investigation into the supervision of the athletes. It remains to be seen what impact that has on the larger Damascus football program, but given the events that apparently transpired in the locker room, it may not reflect too well on whichever coaches are deemed to be responsible for the JV program."

This description is absolutely horrifying. Both ABC and NBC national evening news programs had lead stories about Damascus. NBC had to give a warning for viewers that the details were disturbing.

What is MCPS doing to improve the culture in it's athletics programs? Unfortunately with this type of details and media attention, absolutely nothing.

At our school's Winter Sports Night, no mention of how to report abuse, hazing, or harassment in athletics. No mention of what our school is doing to prevent an incident like Damascus. My children have openly said there are big problems on teams from drug use, to bullying, to predatory behavior by some of the coaching staff. It was business as usual at our school and lets not talk about what is in the news or what is going on in our school's athletic program that presents a danger to children.

God bless the victims for stepping forward. I was an advocate for trying the offenders as juveniles but after reading the News Week description of what they endured, I can see why Maryland is prosecuting them as adults.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do they need an investigation to fire the jv coaches?!

The principal interviewed all the students of the team on November 1st. MCPS knows all that they need to know to fire the coaches. They were playing a game of "Let's wait and see if the charges will stick" or "Let's wait and see if the record will be sealed because they will be tried as juveniles" which has inadvertently blown up in their face. Now the whole world know what sh*t show MCPS is.

[Anonymous]

Since the accused were released on bond, does anyone know if they will go back to school? Or have they been suspended/expelled?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since the accused were released on bond, does anyone know if they will go back to school? Or have they been suspended/expelled?

eye

They have been ordered to stay away from the school .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since the accused were released on bond, does anyone know if they will go back to school? Or have they been suspended/expelled?

They have been ordered to stay away from the school .

[Anonymous]

I hear they could face life in prison if found guilty.
That is not appropriate for a 15 year old. It is not like someone died

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hear they could face life in prison if found guilty.
That is not appropriate for a 15 year old. It is not like someone died

even if your own kid had been a rape victim?

same sentiment, PP?

[Anonymous]

What I want to know is CONTEXT: whether one or more of the perpetrators had the same thing done to them, whether one or more had a history of violence, psychological problems, etc...

It will not excuse anything, but it would some way to make sense out of this horrible act.

And I hold the coaches and school responsible to some degree for fostering a hostile atmosphere on the team. I want to see some heads rolling.